Catching Up With Hugh Dancy
What’s it like to be friends with a serial killer when you don’t know he’s a serial killer? Hannibal Lecter took a bite out of the small screen with the premiere of Hannibal last night at 10 p.m. on NBC. Viewers met the infamous serial killer before Silence of the Lambs, when he was a successful psychiatrist employed by the FBI.
Hugh Dancy (The Big C, Adam, Hysteria) stars as Will Graham, a brilliant criminal profiler who is burdened with the ability to see events from a criminal’s perspective. In last night’s premiere, Will met Dr. Hannibal Lecter for the first time and the two struck up an unlikely bond. Paste talked to the British actor about his new series, what viewers can expect in the show’s first season and if Will will realize who Hannibal truly is.
Paste: This is your first regular series role. Why Hannibal?
Hugh Dancy: I was just intrigued by the script really and then by meeting with [executive producer] Bryan Fuller. Like the first installment of anything should, [the pilot script] raised a lot of questions and I wanted to know where he thought it was heading. I expected a vague answer perhaps. He gave me a fascinating and very full breakdown of not just how he saw the first season but literally the first four seasons of the show. It was intriguing. The way he saw the characters developing, particularly the interaction between me and Hannibal, the cat-and-mouse game between these two very unusual people. And I thought, “well if this were successful and we’re able to keep doing it, that’s going to keep me interested and excited for years to come.”
Paste: Will is rather tortured. He doesn’t take his responsibility lightly. Was that difficult to play over such a sustained amount of time?
Dancy: Hannibal is the one person Will is kind of playful with, almost light-hearted. That’s this odd relationship they strike up. Obviously I haven’t really grasped who I’m dealing with, but they instantly like each other because they operate on the same level. And, obviously, I’m working with great actors. So all of those things combine to mean I’m having a much better time than Will is.
Paste: How familiar were you with Hannibal Lecter before you began filming?
Dancy: I certainly seen Silence of the Lambs when it first came out, although it had been quite a while. What I hadn’t ever really done was read the [Thomas Harris] books—the original blueprint. That makes you feel more confident in having another stab at it like, in a way, a great play that people come back to again and again. You think, “Alright, we can do this with a sense of fealty to the original book and to Harris without trying to deliberately change anything just to make our own mark.” But also you can be free and creative with it, and hopefully people will go with that.