'Silence of the Lambs' original ending was nixed for being too brutal
'Silence of the Lambs' original ending was nixed for being too brutal
Brendan Morrow, USA TODAYSat, April 25, 2026 at 12:15 PM UTC
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More than three decades later, "The Silence of the Lambs" is still a full meal.
The 1991 horror classic, which told the gripping story of cannibal psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) and FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), is celebrating its 35th anniversary, and on April 26 and April 29, it's returning to theaters via Fathom Events.
In a conversation with USA TODAY, Oscar-winning screenwriter Ted Tally says he "definitely would have been surprised" to learn at the time that the movie would take on the life it has. "We didn't know we were going to enter the pantheon" as one of the most acclaimed films of the 1990s.
"It was just one of those cases where all the planets lined up exactly right," he says.
How 'The Silence of the Lambs' almost fell apart
But there was a dark moment when it seemed like "The Silence of the Lambs" might not happen at all. The adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel was first set up with Gene Hackman directing and potentially starring. Tally, who was hired by Hackman to write the script, only had two meetings with the "French Connection" star before Hackman left the project. According to Tally, the actor's daughter convinced him the film would be too controversial.
After Hackman exited, "I was very concerned," Tally recalls. "It was a horrible 24 hours or so. ... I could see the whole thing falling apart in front of my eyes."
Things got back on track when Jonathan Demme signed on to direct, and he and Tally instantly hit it off. "It was a new lease on life," Tally says. The switch was also for the best, given Tally was confused by what Hackman had in mind. "He pictured flashbacks for Clarice that were up in the sky somehow," he says. "I didn't know what he was talking about."
'The Silence of the Lambs' nearly starred Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer
It's hard to imagine anyone but Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter, but Sean Connery was considered.
"Luckily, I didn't know about that at the time, or I would have gone nuts, because Sean Connery, with his big, Scottish accent, would not have worked with that dialogue," Tally says. "He's a great actor, but he's no Tony Hopkins, and he wouldn't have brought nearly as much color to it."
Michelle Pfeiffer was offered Clarice, despite Tally pleading with Demme from the start to cast Foster. "I couldn't convince him," he says. But Pfeiffer turned the part down because she "didn't like the idea that evil partly won in the end," according to Tally.
'The Silence of the Lambs' has faced criticism from the trans community
Ted Levine was cast as the serial killer Clarice pursues, Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb, who kidnaps women to create a suit of their skin to wear. The character has complicated the film's legacy in the trans community, which has objected to the depiction of a crazed man trying to become a woman. In February, Levine told The Hollywood Reporter he has become more aware of "the culture and the reality of the meaning of gender," and it's "unfortunate that the film vilified that."
"The Silence of the Lambs," which starred Jodie Foster (from front), Anthony Hopkins and Scott Glenn, remains the only horror film to ever win best picture at the Academy Awards.
Levine has stressed, though, that Buffalo Bill was not meant to be transgender. This is noted in the movie, with Lecter saying Bill isn't trans and Clarice pointing out there's no correlation between trans people and violence. But in a 2021 essay for SyFy, critic Stacey Henley argued the film is still "built around the most overused and inaccurate trans tropes."
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"I don't think of trans people as being violent, homicidal, and we tried to get that into the dialogue, that he doesn't fit the profile," Tally says. "He's just bats--- crazy."
The screenwriter also says, "Jame Gumb is no more representative of every trans person than Hannibal Lecter is representative of every psychiatrist."
Original 'Silence of the Lambs' ending made director say 'ick'
While writing the script, Tally made some tweaks to Harris' novel. The iconic line where Lecter says he ate a census taker's liver with "fava beans and a nice Chianti" was "fava beans and a big Amarone" in the book. Tally changed it to Chianti because he had "been drinking wine for a long time, and [even] I've never heard of Amarone."
Changes to Tally's script were also made during production, most notably to the ending. The final version features Lecter calling Clarice and saying he's "having an old friend for dinner" before he walks toward his nemesis, Dr. Chilton (Anthony Heald). The novel ended with Lecter writing letters to Chilton and Clarice, which was deemed not visually compelling enough for the movie.
But Tally originally wrote an ending where Lecter has already captured Chilton, who is shown tied up. "Jonathan said, 'Ick. We can't do that. ... He's still a human being. We have to give him at least a slight chance in getting away,'" Tally says.
"I'm having an old friend for dinner" has become one of the most memorable movie quotes ever, and Tally remembers a studio executive accurately predicting after the table read, "That line is going to become famous." The line did not appear in the novel. "Tom Harris said to me one time, 'It's the most famous line people think I've ever written, and I didn't write it.' "
Speaking of mistaken beliefs, fans are often surprised to learn the frequently misquoted line "Hello, Clarice" is never spoken in the movie, a result of viewers misremembering dialogue that was not said until the 2001 sequel "Hannibal." "I probably wouldn't have known myself that it wasn't worded that way," Tally says.
"The Silence of the Lambs" swept the 1992 Oscars, becoming one of three films (after "It Happened One Night" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") to win the "big five" awards: best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. For Tally, the awards love was unexpected. After all, Oscar movies are typically released near the end of the year, whereas "Silence" opened in February, a month where studios would rarely put out films expected to be awards contenders.
Anthony Heald's Dr. Frederick Chilton meets with Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs."
"Mid-February was when movies were dumped in terms of the awards," he says. "I assumed that that killed our chances for the Oscars. And then the studio [Orion Pictures] was going bankrupt at the same time. So it was an uphill climb."
Though it boasts arguably the greatest screen villain of all time, Tally believes the film's heroine, Clarice, is why "The Silence of the Lambs" has resonated for decades.
"It's her combination of strength and vulnerability," he says. "She's a small woman, by herself in a rough, man's world. Her courage is so moving to me."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Silence of the Lambs' trans backlash addressed by screenwriter
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
