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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in cinematic history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he had to recite the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply