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It stands as the greatest entrance in film history – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he had to recite John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, 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 of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply