Putting long-lingering rumors to rest, famed actor Anthony Hopkins rubbished claims of a feud with co-star Jodie Foster on the set of The Silence of the Lambs. Calling the rumors “absolute crap“, the Hannibal actor shared that he had a good camaraderie with Foster in a recent interview. Hopkins revealed that playing contradicting characters required him and Jodi to stay apart until they finished filming. Having said that, no animosity or feud was brewing between them.
Anthony Hopkins dismisses rumors of a feud with Jodie Foster
Anthony Hopkins has silenced all rumors indicating that he and Jodie Foster were at odds on the set of The Silence of the Lambs. The Academy Award winner cleared the air in the recent episode of the Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard podcast.
Speaking about his equation with Jodie Foster, Hopkins said, “I met Jodie, and she was very nice. There’s quotes that Jodie never spoke to me. That’s not true. We were quite friendly. There’s nothing spooky about it. That’s publicly crap.”
“We did the first reading, and I knew how to play it,” Hopkins revealed. “It was the first reading around a table in New York, of all places. So we finished the script and Kenny Utt, one of the producers, says, ‘Holy Moses, Tony, what is that?'”. Jodie also joined in saying, “You’re scary.”
“We just flew right into it. I wanted to show what I could do, so I was as scary as I could be. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. A couple of seconds after I started to speak as Lecter, I saw Jodie grow tense”, Anthony recalled.
In his book We Did OK, Kid: A Memoir, Anthony explains that he kept his distance from Foster until they finished shooting for the movie. However, it was solely for the sake of their characters and not because of what the public assumes “a feud between the two”. He was portraying Hannibal Lecter, a cannibalistic murderer.
Meanwhile, she portrayed Clarice Starling, an FBI agent in training, trying to extract information from him about another serial killer. Hopkins explained how their getting comfortable around each other would have reflected in their performances.
