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NEED TO KNOW
Director Jonathan Demme spoke about the casting of The Silence of the Lambs in a 2016 Deadline interview
Demme died at age 73 in 2017
The Silence of the Lambs debuted on Feb. 14, 1991
The Silence of the Lambsis an unforgettable film within the psychological horror canon, but the subject matter proved too revolting for some.
In 2016, just a year before his death, director Jonathan Demme sat down withDeadlineto talk about the making of the film and its legacy. Demme recalled the precision that went into casting Hannibal Lecter, noting that despite many actors wanting the part, it took specific casting to achieve what only Anthony Hopkins could.
"It was so easy for me to see that Anthony would be a superb Dr. Lecter because he had been such an amazing good doctor inThe Elephant Man. He had been as believable a doctor as you can imagine, and he was good," Demme said.
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Orion Pictures
"What if you cast Anthony Hopkins in the part of Dr. Lecter, who is not the worst doctor, but he's a…good doctor turned bad? That was my engine for Anthony Hopkins. Everybody at Orion had tremendous respect for him as an actor. But everybody wanted to play that part, gosh, fromDustin HoffmantoMorgan Freeman."
The "tremendous interest" even got the attention of Sean Connery, who had also been somewhat seriously considered for the role.
"Sean Connerywas the only other person I thought could be amazing for this. Connery has that fierce intelligence and also that serious physicality. I love Tony Hopkins, but Sean Connery could be amazing," Demme explained.
"So, to take the most commercial path, because Connery was flying very high at the time, we sent the script to Sean Connery first."
However, Connery,who had a controversial history of his own, did not have a positive reaction to what he read.
"Word came back shortly that he thought it was disgusting and wouldn't dream of playing that part," Demme said of the actor, who died in 2020.
Orion Pictures
The decisiveness of Connery's response left the focus on Hopkins and Demme — whodied of complications from esophageal cancerat age 73 in 2017 — did not hesitate.
"Anthony was doingM. Butterflyin London. I flew over and we agreed to do the work together. Having Anthony and Jodie at the center of this, two such intelligent actors? We had a read-through in the boardroom at Orion, a week before we started shooting. All the executives were there. There was electricity in that room, coming off of what Hopkins was doing. He had found Lecter, and I remember when he delivered the last line. The room was just silent."
Demme continued, "My producer, Kenny Utt, just goes, real quiet, 'Oh…yeah!' I realized the actual bottom line truth of doingThe Silence of the Lambs, something I felt when I read that book. I thought, 'This could be the scariest movie ever, and I wanted to make that movie. I wanted to make aPsychocaliber f--king terrifying movie.' "
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