The Silence of the Lambs - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Silence of the Lambs or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Silence of the Lambs

[lynn]

Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is only shown killing two people on-screen, Sergeant Pembry (Alex Coleman) and Lieutenant Boyle (Charles Napier) (the ambulance crew and a tourist were off-screen).

[gerald]

Catherine's car is a 1974 Volvo 164.

[tamara]

Martha Stewart and Anthony Hopkins dated briefly during production. Following the film's release, Stewart ended the relationship because she couldn't divorce Hopkins from his performance as Hannibal Lecter.

[dustin]

In one scene, Catherine Martin is shown speeding along in her car singing American Girl by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Brooke Smith (Catherine Martin) was a fan of New York City hardcore, and had wanted the producers to use a Bad Brains song instead. The other song in consideration for that scene was Rufus and Chaka Khan's "Tell Me Something Good".

[tamara]

Part of Jodie Foster's deal for doing this movie was that Orion Pictures would allow her to direct a movie. She directed Little Man Tate (1991).

[liam]

In the scene near the end, when Jack Crawford is speaking to Clarice from a plane, before she enters the killer's house, you can see that the three men shown in the scene on the plane are all left-handed.

[linda]

Released eight days away from Jonathan Demme's forty-seventh birthday.

[marc]

In this movie, the audience is led to believe that the storage unit Clarice Starling investigates, belonging to a "Hester Mofet", actually belongs to Dr. Hannibal Lecter. However, in the book, the unit actually belongs to flutist Benjamin Raspail, one of Dr. Hannibal Lecter's victims; the head in the jar belongs to Raspail's boyfriend Klaus, who was actually killed by a jealous Jame Gumb. In this movie, this is altered to be the head of Benjamin Raspail, making Raspail one of Jame Gumb's victims. This change makes this film contradict the other films Red Dragon (2002) and Hannibal (2001), where Raspail is explicitly referred to as Lecter's victim, like in the books.

[elmer]

Dr. Hannibal Lecter's drawing of Clarice (shown in his temporary cell in Memphis, Tennessee) features three crosses in the background, with only one showing a man crucified. The drawing purposefully makes Clarice look older with jowls, creases under her eyes, and a gray streak in her hair. Of course, in her arms is the lamb she had tried to rescue. In essence, Dr. Hannibal Lecter is trying to suggest the statue The Pieta, which features Mary holding the body of Jesus (the Lamb of God) in her arms.

[jamie]

Director Jonathan Demme was convinced that Jodie Foster would be perfect for Clarice Starling when he saw her purposefully walk down a corridor to meet him. He liked her air of determination.

[christina]

Kenneth Utt: The coroner.

[jim]

The only movie in which Jodie Foster won an acting Oscar for her performance in a movie which also won Best Picture.

[wesley]

The real-life FBI's Behavioral Science Unit assisted in the making of this movie.

[ray]

Director Jonathan Demme met with Robert Duvall to see if he would be a good fit for the part of Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

[tom]

Sir John Hurt, Christopher Lloyd, Dustin Hoffman, Sir Patrick Stewart, Louis Gossett Jr., Robert Duvall, Jack Nicholson, and Robert De Niro were all considered for the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Jeremy Irons was asked but turned down the role, as he had just played Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune (1990), and didn't want to play another dark character. In a 2016 interview with Empire magazine, John Lithgow named Anthony Hopkins's Lecter as one of the great screen villains of all time, adding "even though I was next in line for the role".

[ronnie]

In the second draft of Ted Tally's screenplay, the names of three characters had to be changed from Thomas Harris' novel for legal reasons: Jack Crawford became Ray Campbell, Dr. Frederick Chilton became Herbert Prentiss, and Dr. Hannibal Lecter became Gideon Quinn.

[russell]

The first movie widely available on home video at the time of the Academy Awards ceremony to win Best Picture.

[ken]

When characters are talking to Clarice, they often talk directly to the camera. Director Jonathan Demme has explained that this was done so as the audience would directly experience her point of view, and more readily identify with Clarice, over her male counterparts.

[elmer]

Former FBI Special Agent John Edward Douglas, on whom the Jack Crawford character was based, achieved some fame of his own a few years after this movie. He was hired by the parents of JonBenét Ramsey to investigate her death and apparent murder. Up until that point, the parents had been the chief suspects in the case. While Douglas did not fault the local police for investigating the family first, as in this movie, investigators usually assume that victims know their killers, he became the first public official to proclaim their innocence.