⭐8.5
Description: Will Graham is a special consultant with the FBI. He has a special gift whereby he can empathize with any individual and put himself in their shoes. This means he gets to help solve vicious murders, especially those involving serial killers, as he can profile the murderer – their method, motives and personality profile. For a particular case, the FBI also seek the help of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a highly-respected psychiatrist. Will and Hannibal hit it off, and Will becomes a patient of Hannibal. Little does he know or suspect that Hannibal might be the most wanted serial killer in the US.
Creator: Bryan Fuller
Stars: Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, Caroline Dhavernas
Taglines:
- Detective Will Graham has a killer new partner.
- He’s just getting started.
- Feed your fear
Trivia
- Laurence Fishburne, who plays Jack Crawford, and Gina Torres, who plays Crawford’s wife Bella, were married to each other in real life. They have since separated.
- Mads Mikkelsen did all of his own cooking on screen, including the egg trick. He was trained by the show’s food stylist, Janice Poon.
- Hugh Dancy actually recommended Mads Mikkelsen for the role of Hannibal Lecter, as the two actors had become friends during filming of King Arthur (2004).
- In the series Hugh Dancy plays Will Graham opposite Mads Mikkelsen’s Hannibal Lecter. In the film King Arthur (2004), almost ten years before Hannibal, Dancy’s character says: “I don’t kill for pleasure. Unlike some.” Mads responds with: “Well, you should try it someday. You might get a taste for it.”
- David Tennant auditioned for the lead role of Hannibal (2013). Producer Bryan Fuller was so impressed with his audition, he told a magazine that even though he didn’t get the role, he wanted to write Tennant a a guest role as a deranged serial killer.
- This series borrows character and stories quite liberally from Thomas Harris’ novels Red Dragon, Hannibal and Hannibal rising, but surprisingly, not from The Silence of the Lambs, even though it was from that film that most people became familiar with Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. This is because that film was the only one in the series not produced by Dino De Laurentiis, and thus the producers of this series do not have the rights to it. Whether or not they have, or intend to use, the rights to Clarice Starling is unknown at this point.
- Hugh Dancy (Will Graham) screen tested for the role of Hannibal in Hannibal Rising (2007).
- Gillian Anderson, who plays Bedelia Du Maurier, was in talks to play the role of Clarice Starling in the film Hannibal (2001). In fact, Anderson has admitted that her characterization of Dana Scully on The X-Files (1993) was largely inspired by Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
- The role of Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier was originally written as a much older woman with Angela Lansbury in mind. When Lansbury could not accept the role due to conflicts with the Australian production of “Driving Miss Daisy”, the role was rewritten for a younger actress and Gillian Anderson was cast.