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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling a living skull filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply