ITV airs ‘Silence Of The Lambs‘ at 10:45pm, the Oscar winning film — which stars Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins — follows FBI student Clarice who is assigned to search for a serial killer known as ‘Buffalo Bill’. Clarice is helped by Dr Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter, a sociopathic former psychiatrist now held in a maximum security prison. Hopkins plays Dr Hannibal, and while he and Clarice worked together closely on screen, reports suggest that their relationship was not as strong when the cameras stopped rolling.
In 2016, Foster revealed that she never actually spoke to Hopkins during the filming process other than what is seen on-screen.
Asked about her experience with him during an appearance on the Graham Norton Show, she replied: “No. Never spoke to him. He was scary.”
She went on to explain that on the first day of filming they had a read through of the script yet by the end of the session, Foster concluded that she never wanted to speak to him again.
Foster added: “So then we did the whole movie, he was always behind the glass partitions or in his cell.
“Because the scenes were so long, they would lock him in at the beginning of the day, and the next day he’d be on the other side.
“We got to the end of the movie and hadn’t really had a conversation.”
Asked if she had even walked past him, she replied: “No I avoided him. I was eating a sandwich, it was the last day and he came up to me.
“I said with a tear in my eye ‘I was really scared of you’. He said ‘I was scared of you!’. Why would anyone be scared of me? I don’t know.”
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“After 10 pages, I phoned my agent. I said, ‘Is this a real offer? I want to know. This is the best part I’ve ever read.’ I read the rest of the script, and Jonathan [Demme] came over on a Saturday afternoon and we had dinner. And I said, ‘Is this for real?’
“And he said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘OK.’ He was such a wonderful guy to work with. I couldn’t believe my luck, and I was scared to speak to you. I thought, ‘She just won an Oscar.’”
In the same interview, Foster added: “As you launched into Hannibal Lecter, I felt a chill come over the room.
“In a way, it was like we were almost too scared to talk to each other after that.”
Foster also explained that her mother wasn’t sure whether she should take on the role of Clarice, but that she’s ultimately glad she did.
She said: “I understood that was her strength. In some ways, she was just like the victims — another girl in another town.
“The fact that she could relate to those victims made her the hero.”
Silence Of The Lambs airs at 10:45pm on ITV One.
