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It stands as the greatest introduction in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, proceeds down a row of prison cells arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, far from Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the way they had to go begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply