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It stands as the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – and he remains utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he liked more over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to get there 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: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply