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It stands as the most iconic introduction in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down a corridor of cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, chillingly static wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply