50 Fun Facts About The Silence of the Lambs

Before his arrest, Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs practised which branch of medicine?

Psychiatry: one of his former patients is the link to the killer the FBI is hunting, a lead he feeds the trainee sent to question him.

Who plays FBI trainee Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs?

Jodie Foster lobbied for the role as soon as she had read the novel, even phoning the screenwriter mid-draft, while the director first wanted someone else.

Which actor did Demme first approach to play Hannibal Lecter before Anthony Hopkins?

Sean Connery got the script first because he was the bigger box-office name; Demme recalled that word came back he found it disgusting, which freed him to cast Hopkins.

Who was Demme's first choice to play Clarice Starling?

Michelle Pfeiffer had just starred in his Married to the Mob, but she turned the part down, later saying the subject matter made her nervous.

What did Hopkins reportedly ask his agent when told a script called The Silence of the Lambs was coming?

'Is it a children's story?' was his reply, and ten pages into the script he rang his agent back to say it was the best part he had ever read.

Hopkins once said Lecter's voice blended HAL 9000, Katharine Hepburn and which American writer?

Truman Capote was in the mix he gave Empire magazine in 1991; thirty years later he told GQ that the story about borrowing Hepburn's voice was not true.

The craftsman who made Lecter's famous muzzle for The Silence of the Lambs usually supplied which customers?

Hockey goalies: Ed Cubberly cut the design from the lower half of an old fibreglass goalie mask, added bars over the mouth and left the material its raw colour.

Which film was the last before The Silence of the Lambs to win the 'Big Five' Oscars?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest swept them at the 1976 ceremony. The Silence of the Lambs matched it despite opening in February, 13 months before its own Oscar night.

Which animated film lost Best Picture to The Silence of the Lambs?

Beauty and the Beast, the first animated nominee for the top Oscar, had been shown unfinished at the New York Film Festival, with only about 70% of its animation complete.

In The Silence of the Lambs, what does Buffalo Bill send down the well to his captive?

Lotion, to rub on her skin: he gives the order calling his captive 'it', and she later fights back by seizing his dog as a hostage.

Who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs?

Ted Tally got the job after Harris gave him an early copy of the novel, and he kept writing unpaid when the star who was meant to direct it walked away.

Which actor planned to direct and star in The Silence of the Lambs before withdrawing from the project?

Gene Hackman had bought the rights jointly with the studio, then pulled out over the story's violence; by one account his daughter read the book and told him not to make it.

Which studio released The Silence of the Lambs on Valentine's Day 1991?

Orion Pictures filed for bankruptcy protection that December, so the studio was already broke when its film swept the Oscars the following March.

Where was most of The Silence of the Lambs filmed?

Around Pittsburgh for most of the shoot, though the FBI also opened its real academy at Quantico to the crew.

What is Buffalo Bill's real name in The Silence of the Lambs?

Jame Gumb answers the door to Starling as 'Jack Gordon' at the very moment the FBI's raid team is storming an empty house in another state.

Which real killer's trick of faking an injured arm to lure victims did Harris borrow for Buffalo Bill?

Ted Bundy wore a fake cast and asked women to help him move things; Buffalo Bill copies the ploy, asking his target to help load a chair into his van.

Which real criminal's basement pit inspired the design of Buffalo Bill's well?

Gary M. Heidnik held six women captive in a pit under his Philadelphia house while leading church services upstairs as a self-styled bishop.

In the film The Silence of the Lambs, what kind of insect does Buffalo Bill leave in his victims' throats?

A death's-head moth: Lecter reads it as a symbol of change, the transformation the killer wants for himself.

Lecter's false name for the killer, 'Louis Friend', is an anagram of what?

Iron sulfide is fool's gold, Lecter's way of telling Starling the tip was worthless.

In The Silence of the Lambs, which US city is Lecter flown to for a meeting with a senator?

Memphis is where the senator's daughter was abducted; Lecter is flown there on the promise of a prison transfer and hands her a false name for the killer.

In The Silence of the Lambs, what does Lecter use to slip his handcuffs?

A piece of a pen: the hospital director left it in Lecter's cell while telling him Starling's offer was a fake, and Lecter later used it to get free and attack his two guards.

In The Silence of the Lambs, which doctor runs the Baltimore hospital where Lecter is held?

Dr. Frederick Chilton is still on Lecter's mind at the end: the escaped killer phones Starling while watching him step off a plane, and says he is having an old friend for dinner.

Who plays Jack Crawford, Starling's FBI boss, in The Silence of the Lambs?

Scott Glenn prepared with the FBI, listening to a recording made by two real killers, and later admitted he may have gone a shade too far with his research.

In The Silence of the Lambs, the lambs Starling failed to save were on a relative's farm in which state?

Montana: she ran away from the farm after finding the spring lambs being slaughtered, and ended up in an orphanage.

In The Silence of the Lambs, what was the job of Starling's late dad, killed when she was ten?

Police officer: a small-town marshal, he was shot answering a robbery, a memory Starling trades to Lecter for help, after he had guessed her dad was a coal miner.

How does Buffalo Bill stalk Starling at the climax of The Silence of the Lambs?

With night-vision goggles he follows her through the blacked-out basement, but the click of his revolver being cocked gives him away and she fires at the sound.

Buffalo Bill's first victim, whose home gives Starling the breakthrough, worked as what?

A tailor: her sewing room shows Starling that the killer sews too, and is cutting his victims' skin into a suit for himself.

Which cult song plays during Buffalo Bill's infamous mirror scene?

'Goodbye Horses' by Q Lazzarus reached the director by taxi: the story goes that the singer was driving a New York cab when she picked him up and played him her demo.

Who composed the score for The Silence of the Lambs, recorded by the Munich Symphony Orchestra?

Howard Shore wrote it to go unnoticed inside the film, keeping the orchestra in its lowest registers for a constant sense of dread.

Lecter's famous line about a census taker mentions liver, fava beans and what?

A nice Chianti: it is his warning shot when Starling pushes an FBI questionnaire at him, and he sends her away with a hissing slurp.

Which 1986 film was the first to put Thomas Harris's Dr. Lecter on screen?

Manhunter adapted the novel Red Dragon with Brian Cox as the doctor; sixteen years later the same book was filmed again under its own title, with Hopkins in the role.

Which producer lent the makers of The Silence of the Lambs the Hannibal Lecter character for free?

Dino De Laurentiis owned the character through his own Lecter film, which had lost money, so he never read the new novel and waved the rights through; he later called it a big mistake.

Who replaced the original Starling actress in the 2001 sequel Hannibal?

Julianne Moore got the part after Ridley Scott ran the choice past Hopkins, who had acted with her in Surviving Picasso and gave his blessing.

Who played the disfigured Mason Verger in Hannibal (2001)?

Gary Oldman asked for a prominent credit, was refused and left, then came back asking for no credit at all, and plays the part unrecognisable under prosthetics.

Which actor played FBI agent Will Graham in the 2002 prequel Red Dragon?

Edward Norton inherited a role William Petersen had played sixteen years earlier, when the same novel was first filmed under another title.

Who played Hannibal Lecter in NBC's Hannibal (2013-15)?

Mads Mikkelsen played him for three seasons, until NBC dropped the series as its audience slid to a series low.

Who played the young Lecter in the 2007 prequel Hannibal Rising?

Gaspard Ulliel's film exists because its producer said he told Thomas Harris he would make a young-Hannibal story with or without him, so Harris wrote the novel and the script.

The 2021 CBS series Clarice, starring Rebecca Breeds as the Silence of the Lambs agent, is set when?

Between the film and Hannibal: it opens in 1993, a year after Buffalo Bill, and a tangle over character rights meant it could never so much as mention Lecter.

Thomas Harris said Hannibal Lecter grew out of a doctor he met as a young reporter in which place?

A prison in Mexico: Harris took the courteous doctor for one of the staff until the warden told him on the way out that the man was a surgeon locked up for murder.

In Thomas Harris's novels, Hannibal Lecter is born into the nobility of which country?

Lithuania: the prequel novel shows him as a boy there in the Second World War, when starving looters kill his sister, the trauma it offers as the making of him.

Ted Levine, who played Buffalo Bill, is also known for playing Captain Stottlemeyer on which series?

Monk made Ted Levine a lawman, a long way from what Buffalo Bill first brought him: he has said that for a time he was offered little but killers.

Hopkins won his second Best Actor Oscar, aged 83, for which 2020 film?

The Father won him the night's final award in an upset over the late Chadwick Boseman; Hopkins was not there, and sent his thanks by video from Wales the next day.

Before The Silence of the Lambs, the actress playing Clarice Starling had won her first Oscar for which film?

The Accused relaunched her: producers had doubted the former child star, who auditioned for the part after a run of flops that followed her years at Yale.

Which B-movie producer, who gave Demme his first directing jobs, plays the FBI Director in The Silence of the Lambs?

Roger Corman was often cast by directors he had launched: he also turns up in The Godfather Part II and Apollo 13, and again for Demme in Philadelphia.

Which prize did Thomas Harris's novel The Silence of the Lambs win?

The Bram Stoker Award comes from the Horror Writers Association, yet the same thriller also won the Anthony Award, given at the mystery world's annual convention.

Which post-punk band's song 'Hip Priest' plays as Starling enters Buffalo Bill's house?

The Fall recorded it for the 1982 album Hex Enduction Hour, and singer Mark E. Smith reworked it six years later as the glam-rock 'Big New Prinz'.

Which film festival gave Demme a shared best-director prize for The Silence of the Lambs in February 1991?

Berlin screened it in competition when it was already in US cinemas: the film had opened there on 14 February, the day before the festival began.

Which FBI profiler, later the author of Mindhunter, showed the actor playing Jack Crawford around Quantico?

John E. Douglas ran the FBI's serial-crime unit and was Thomas Harris's model for Crawford, so the actor was shadowing the man he was about to play.

As of 2026, the real house used as Buffalo Bill's home operates as what?

Vacation rental: fans can book the whole house, and because the film's pit was a studio set, the owner had Tom Savini's effects team build a replica in the basement.

What did Britain's film censors do to the 18 certificate of The Silence of the Lambs for its 2017 re-release?

Lowered it to 15: the BBFC's Craig Lapper said viewers had not gone numb so much as grown used to serial killers as a stock figure of crime drama.