Silence of the Lambs: Michelle Pfeiffer turned down role because ‘evil won’

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Michelle Pfeiffer and Jodie Foster have both played multiple iconic roles over the years, and they've both been nominated for Academy Awards on several occasions. Foster has won two Oscars, one of them being for the work she did as FBI trainee Clarice Starling in the 1991 classic The Silence of the Lambs (watch it HERE) – a role she got after Pfeiffer turned it down.

The Silence of the Lambs was directed by Jonathan Demme, who had previously directed Pfeiffer in 1988's Married to the Mob. Pfeiffer was Demme's top choice to play Clarice, and he offered the role to her… but Pfeiffer "got nervous about the subject matter". Speaking with The New Yorker, she said, 

I was trepidatious. There was such evil in that film. … It was that evil won in the end, that at the end of that film evil ruled out. I was uncomfortable with that ending. I didn't want to put that out into the world."

From that, it sounds like Pfeiffer's biggest issue with the script was that Hannibal Lecter got away in the end. She doesn't seem to mind that she wasn't in The Silence of the Lambs, although she does regret the fact that she didn't have "the opportunity to do another film with Jonathan Demme". She has said that working with Demme was one of the highlights of her life, but they never worked together again before he passed away in 2017.

It’s so sad to me that he’s no longer with us. First of all, he is the nicest person, he is funny, and not only is he really funny but he’s the easiest person to make laugh, so we just laugh all the time. (Married to the Mob) was a very demanding shoot, but for whatever reason I just sort of stepped into her. I don’t know why. I didn’t have to work really that hard at it, I didn’t even have to work that hard at the accent."

Although Foster was pursuing the role of Clarice Starling, Demme was so unconvinced that she could play the character that he turned to Meg Ryan (who also turned down the role) and Laura Dern (who was vetoed by the producers) before the producers finally convinced him to go with Foster.

The Silence of the Lambs ended up being nominated for seven Academy Awards. Foster won Best Actress, Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for his performance as Hannibal Lecter, Demme won Best Director, Ted Tally won Best Screenplay for his adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel, and the film won Best Picture. The only categories the film was nominated for but didn't win were Best Sound and Best Film Editing.