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It stands as the most iconic introduction in film history – and he remains completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, chillingly static wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked him being away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply