Anthony Hopkins picks the best Hannibal Lecter movie: “The most interesting and frightening and scary”
Little did author Thomas Harris know when he first wrote the character of a psychiatrist-turned-cannibal that he’d end up creating a pop culture icon, but it wasn’t until Anthony Hopkins became the second actor to play the role on-screen that Hannibal Lecter took a bite out of the public consciousness.
Michael Mann’s overlooked 1986 thriller Manhunter got there first with Brian Cox playing the part of Hannibal Lecktor, but it was five years later that Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs exploded onto the scene, swept the ‘Big Five’ categories at the Academy Awards for only the third time ever, and rewarded Hopkins with the ‘Best Actor’ prize for his unforgettable performance.
Naturally, Hollywood sniffed franchise potential in the air and proceeded to run the property into the ground through substandard sequel Hannibal, unnecessary prequel Red Dragon, and even more unnecessary (and Hopkins-less) prequel Hannibal Rising before Bryan Fuller did a stellar job reinventing the charismatic killer with Mads Mikkelsen in the three-season psychological thriller series, even if the (Hannibal-less) prequel show Clarice was canned after one season.
The magic of The Silence of the Lambs was never recaptured, but there was hope that Red Dragon could have hewed more to the first instalment in the trilogy than the second, especially with a top-notch ensemble cast on board. Brett Ratner was never a great director, but having Hopkins on board alongside Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Emily Watson, and more was a good place to start.
It was definitely better than Hannibal, but The Silence of the Lambs? No chance. Still, that didn’t dissuade Hopkins from trying to persuade the BBC otherwise, even if it reeks of contractual obligation that he was trying to paint the third chapter as being superior to both of its predecessors.
“I actually think it’s the best of the three. I think Red Dragon is the most interesting and frightening and scary,” he suggested. “I think what’s interesting is the way the investigator Will Graham seems to get into the mind of the killer and also the forensic stuff that goes on. Forensic science interests me a lot.”
Unfolding first chronologically, Hopkins “tried to play him differently than I did in the other two films,” with the star wanting to portray Lecter as “so much angrier.” In Red Dragon, “he’s furious with Ed Norton’s character about being locked away and would destroy him if he could,” which he tried to channel in his performance.
Did it work out that way? Well, considering Hopkins would later admit that he never should have played the part more than once, the regrets he voiced in hindsight paint a completely different picture to his initial enthusiasm.