Jodie Foster earned an Oscar for playing Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, but she opted not to return for 2001 sequel Hannibal. While there’s always been this odd reluctance to label The Silence of the Lambs a horror film – if it contains a cannibal serial killer who eats a man’s face, it’s definitely horror – there’s no question that director Jonathan Demme’s film is an iconic classic, and one of the most highly regarded films of the 1990s.
The Silence of the Lambs earned seven Oscar nominations, and ended up winning the “big five” awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The Best Actor award went to Anthony Hopkins, whose rendition of Dr. Hannibal Lecter casts a giant shadow in pop culture. Best Actress went to Jodie Foster for her portrayal of Clarice, a rookie FBI agent tasked with gaining information from Hannibal concerning the case of a new killer called Buffalo Bill.
While Hannibal is certainly the flashier role of the two, Clarice is just as important to The Silence of the Lambs being as excellent a film as it turned out to be. The odd chemistry between both the two characters and the actors that play them resonates during every scene they share, so naturally, when it was decided that Hannibal would return to the big screen, fans looked forward to Foster and Hopkins reuniting. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
Why Jodie Foster Didn’t Play Clarice in Hannibal
Based on Thomas Harris’ 1999 novel of the same name, the Hannibal movie (not to be confused with the later Hannibal TV series on NBC) ended up recasting Julianne Moore into the Clarice role. A future Oscar-winner, Moore would certainly never be accused of not possessing acting talent, but most fans came away from Hannibal with the feeling that she had been woefully miscast, and that her chemistry with Hopkins was quite lacking. Unsurprisingly, Hannibal‘s producers did indeed try to bring Foster back as Clarice, and in 1997, the actress expressed confidence that she and Hopkins’ Hannibal would share the screen again.
By 1999 though, Foster had backed out of the project, and producers weren’t sure at first if they wanted to risk recasting Clarice. For her part, Foster said in an interview that she was displeased with Hannibal‘s script, and thought it betrayed Clarice’s established character. Jonathan Demme is also said to have declined to return as director for similar reasons. Considering the book ended with Clarice and Hannibal actually becoming lovers – a plot point hated by many fans of both characters – one imagines that anything similar in an early script would’ve put Foster off. Thankfully, Ridley Scott ended up rejecting that ending as well, and a new one was written for the film. Additionally, at least according to producer Dino De Laurentiis, Foster asked for an unreasonably high salary to return, but it’s unclear if that’s simply sour grapes on his part.
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