Anthony Hopking Hails This 1931 Iconic Horror as His ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ Inspiration
Hopkins’ brand new memoir reveals how exactly he made everyone shiver on The Silence of the Lambs’ set.
There’s a solid number of truly iconic villains in the cinema history, but no one has ever managed to do to their character the same as Anthony Hopkins did to Hannibal Lecter.
Having appeared in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, the character forever changed the course of horror movies, with Hopkins becoming one of few actors who received an Oscar for starring in fear-inducing films.
For years since The Silence of the Lambs premiered, numerous fans have been trying to decipher Hopkins’ methods to look just as scary on the screen, though, as it turned out recently, the actor had been getting inspiration from another iconic villain all along.
Anthony Hopkins Based His Hannibal Lecter on Bela Lugosi’s Dracula in the 1931 Movie
Despite both characters seeming to be quite different from each other, it appears as if Anthony Hopkins did see something common in their own moral.
As the actor revealed in his new memoir “We Did OK, Kid” published on November 4, he knew what Hannibal was like since the very beginning, choosing to use his own inner demon to help him get through the role.
“I instinctively sensed how to play Hannibal. I have the devil in me. We all have the devil in us. I know what scares people”, Hopkins shared (via The Times).
However, during the first table reading the actor turned to his own icons, even though he “was as scary as I could be”.
“I also called on my childhood impersonations of Bela Lugosi at boarding school. As a kid, I went to see him in Dracula. That had been one of the first big books I ever read”, the actor continued, adding that he quickly remembered the scene where protagonist Jonathan Harker cuts himself with a razor and that summons Dracula’s darkest intentions.
“The sound I imagined Dracula made in that moment, thirsting for Harker’s blood, was a very particular combination of hissing and slurping”, Hopkins admitted.
Anthony Hopkins Initially Thought ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ Was a Kids Movie
The movie might in fact be the scariest thing many viewers have ever seen, but it’s hard to deny that The Silence of the Lambs’ title is also a little but deluding.
Hopkins himself felt the same way when he first got the script and read the movie’s title, which he at first thought was referring to a film for much younger audiences.
“My agent sent a script. He said, "Why don’t you read this? It’s called Silence of the Lambs." I said, "Is it a children’s story?" It was a hot summer afternoon, and the script came over and I started reading it. 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”, the actor revealed in a joint interview with co-star Jodie Foster for Variety back in 2021.
He then added that he’d accepted the offer at once and actually couldn’t believe his luck for quite some time.
