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Many consider it the most iconic entrance in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the book he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply