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Many consider it the most iconic entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply