20 facts you might not know about 'The Silence of the Lambs'

The movie began life as a book in 1988 written by Thomas Harris. He’s basically only known for the Hannibal Lecter novels. Harris has written six novels in his life, and four of them are about Lecter.

While The Silence of the Lambs is the first movie based on a Harris book, it was not the first book he wrote featuring Lecter. The first book in the series is Red Dragon, which came out in 1981. The book was turned into the third Lecter film.

The aforementioned Red Dragon? Technically, it was adapted before the film Red Dragon came out. In 1986, before Harris had even written Silence of the Lambs, the film Manhunter was released. It featured Brian Cox in the role of Hannibal Lecter.

Though Manhunter was something of a flop — producer Dino De Laurentiis lent the rights to the Lecter character to Orion Pictures for free — they went into production on Silence of the Lambs quite early. Screenwriter Ted Lally began working on the script in 1987, and as you likely remember, the book was released in 1988.

Demme was a successful director before getting the nod to helm Silence of the Lambs. He had released films like Melvin and Howard and Something Wild. Oh, and he directed perhaps the most acclaimed concert film ever, Stop Making Sense. Initially, Gene Hackman was considered to direct the movie. Yes, the actor. He had partnered with Orion to get the rights for the movie and was also planning to play Jack Crawford. Hackman withdrew from the project, and Demme got the job.

Foster was coming off winning an Oscar and wanted to play Clarice Starling, the film's ostensible lead. However, she had to wait until she was offered the role. Demme’s first choice was Michelle Pfeiffer, and his second was Meg Ryan. However, both found the movie too grisly for their tastes. Laura Dern was also suggested, but the studio felt she was not a big enough star. This opened the door for Foster.

Dr. Lecter became the iconic role for Hopkins, and he was enthusiastic about the project from the beginning. Well, at least after he got to read the script. When Hopkins’ agent told him about a project called Silence of the Lambs, he asked if it was a children’s film. Not quite, Sir Anthony.

In creating the way his personal take on Lecter would talk, Hopkins pulled from a few influences. In addition to Katharine Hepburn and Truman Capote, Hopkins modeled his speech pattern from the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You will find Corman, a legendary schlock producer, in many films by esteemed directors and even in multiple Best Picture winners. There’s a reason for that. Dozens of actors and directors who went on to become immensely successful got their start working on Corman’s films. He plays FBI Director Hayden Burke in The Silence of the Lambs and can be seen in Demme’s follow-up film Philadelphia.

For many, Ted Levine is only remembered as Jame Gumb, aka Buffalo Bill, the menacing, unnerving antagonist of The Silence of the Lambs. While he’s been in many projects, he spent years playing Leland Stottlemeyer, the San Francisco Police Department captain, on Monk. Yes, he went from one of the scariest people in movie history to a police captain in one of USA’s “blue skies” procedurals.

If you follow the film industry, you might have heard of the term “Dumpuary.” This is the colloquial term used to describe January and February on the movie front. These months often see studios “dumping” films that they think will be failures. Go back and look at the history of January and February releases sometime. The Silence of the Lambs did not fall victim to that. The movie was released on February 14, 1991 (Yes, Valentine’s Day, a weird choice) and became the fifth-highest-grossing movie of the year. Oh, and then there was the Oscars success.

Winning the “Big Five” is extremely impressive when it comes to the Academy Awards. That means winning Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and a Best Screenplay Oscar. Three films have done it. It Happened One Night did it back in 1934, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest did it in 1975. The Silence of the Lambs joined that select group with wins in the “Big Five."

Does Anthony Hopkins make an indelible mark on The Silence of the Lambs? For sure. However, he got some bang for his buck in winning Best Picture. The film comes in at just under two hours, but Hopkins only has 24 minutes and 52 seconds of screen time. The number that used to be bandied about was 16 minutes, which proved a little exaggerated. Even so, there are Supporting Actor winners with more screen time than that!

The American Film Institute went through a stretch where they were releasing lists left and right. One of those lists was “100 Heroes and Villains,” though there are only 50 of each. Clarice came in sixth on the heroes list. Dr. Lecter finished on top of the villains' side of the list.

Brooke Smith plays Catherine Martin in Silence of the Lambs. Things don’t go great for her. Later in her career, Smith played Sheriff Jane Greene on the TV show Bates Motel. That show is a prequel to another horror movie of note, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Silence of the Lambs is so grim, it only makes sense to try and cut the tension and perhaps twist it into something lighter and stranger. Hence, Silence!: The Musical. Yes, there is an (unauthorized, very, very unauthorized) musical based on Hannibal Lecter, Clarice Starling, and Buffalo Bill. Believe it or not, it had a few successful runs. In 2005, it won Outstanding Musical when it debuted at the New York International Fringe Festival, and in 2011, Time Magazine named it one of the top 10 plays and musicals of the year.

We already noted that Hopkins clocked in with a little under 25 minutes of screen time, and for most of the movie, he’s locked away in his prison cell. As such, despite being portrayed by two Oscar winners in the film, Clarice and Hannibal only have four scenes together.

That moth cocoon found in one of the victim’s throats? Hey, we tried to be as ungrisly as possible in writing this, but it was impossible to avoid it entirely. Well, that wasn’t an actual cocoon of any kind. It was made of Tootsie Rolls and Gummy Bears so that it would be edible if it was accidentally swallowed.

The Silence of the Lambs was a huge success in multiple ways, so a sequel was a natural idea. This led to Hannibal , a movie that wasn’t as well received. It also did not see Foster return. Oh, Clarice returned to continue her interactions with Lecter. Hopkins also came back to play Lecter. However, Foster was replaced by Julianne Moore as Clarice for the movie.

Even 30 years later, we can understand CBS's decision to make a TV show built around Clarice Starling. The Silence of the Lambs has had enough of a legacy to still gain interest. Plus, we’d get to see Clarice and Hannibal Lecter again! Well…not so fast. CBS may have the rights to The Silence of the Lambs and Clarice Starling, but they do not have the rights to the character of Hannibal Lecter. The show was not even allowed to reference the doctor, much less depict him on screen.