In the new chat that is tied The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim that ends up being about Succession (perhaps unsurprisingly), Brian Cox has spoken about what it was like to be the guy who played Hannibal Lecter on screen first… a few years before Anthony Hopkins’ Oscar win The Silence of the Lambs he made everyone think he was the one who invented the role.
The veteran actor, who since 1986 has been doing his own stage shows, has made peace with what could have been a thespian feud. “No, it’s a different character,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I mean, it’s like playing Hamlet. Everyone will have their own Hamlet. I chose to play it the way director Michael Mann and I decided to play it. Tony played it very well. I mean I had to go to Paris to see it because I couldn’t see it in London.”
Asked for clarification on the latter part of his answer, Cox explained, “Because people knew I was another Hannibal, and I was worried about, ‘You’re comparing Hannibal Lecter’ to all that. But we played it the way we played it. Tony decided to take them down another way. And of course, Tony’s was a huge success, and he got an Oscar and made a lot of money from it. I did something like 10 grand. “
But the one rule that holds true for both, obviously, is that of Cox and Hopkins don’t talk about Hannibal Lecter. “I did an interview with a newspaper, the article of this newspaper says that I am the first Hannibal Lecter. Well, that was true, but it sounded like I was bragging about it and I wasn’t. And then I woke up one afternoon and the phone started ringing and it went backwards … Tony’s missus at the time called my agent and said, ‘Tony’s upset about that.’ So I called my agent and said, ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ Tony and I have worked together a few times since then. We never talk about it. And that is a law we will never do.”
For those wondering, THR has not revealed Mads Mikkelsen’s take on the character in the TV series. Hannibal-so we’re left wondering what Cox was thinking that a sophisticated version of a serial killer. With that in mind, you can head over to THR to read the full interview.
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