HANNIBAL Casting Dilemma

By: Dan Cziraky
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2000

Despite rumors and wishful thinking, it appears that X-FILES star Gillian Anderson was never even offered the role of FBI agent 'Clarice Starling' in HANNIBAL, a role vacated by Jodie Foster, who passed on reprising the part in the sequel to THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. In fact, it looks as if the front-runner to fill Starling's shoes is actress Cate Blanchett. As recently reported on CinescapeOnline, Blanchett, although set to star in Sam Raimi's THE GIFT and Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS, is being wooed by Universal for their troubled production. There is still the possibility that the production, also known as THE ANIMAL after the most recent script changes, might in fact be shut down before production can ever begin.
Ironically, this would probably suit HANNIBAL author Thomas Harris. He was quite vocal in his disgust over the legal battles over the rights to the LAMBS sequel, and it's been a popular theory that Harris made HANNIBAL so graphically violent and morally disturbing with the intent that no studio would dare film it as written.