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Many consider it the greatest appearance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, chillingly static in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply