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

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, 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 propels himself against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply