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Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges against the glass, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt 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 pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days financial aid was available to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character 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 thriving starry career on screen, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply