Anthony Hopkins is one of the best actors Hollywood could ever be gifted with and his big-screen works is the living proof of it. Even after more than three decades, his 1991 blockbuster The Silence of the Lambs is remembered as one of his best works to date. The film received huge critical acclaim and resulted in Hopkins winning his first-ever Oscar for Best Actor.
However, as incredible as his performance was in the movie, the director of the film, the late Jonathan Demme believed that Hopkins should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor instead. This was due to his minimal screen time. However, Demme’s initial thoughts were put to rest when Anthony Hopkins ended up winning the award for Best Actor instead.
Anthony Hopkins Shocked Jonathan Demme With His Oscar For ‘Best Actor’
While he took pride in his movie and all the actors who gave remarkable performances, the film didn’t ‘seem like an Oscar movie’ to the late Jonathan Demme because it was a thriller about a young woman trying to save another young woman. But then they got nominated for the Oscars.
Because of that, Demme was fighting the urge to put Anthony Hopkins in the Best Supporting Category because of his minimal screen time, which could increase his chances of bagging the accolade. As he shared in an interview with Deadline:
“The nominations took everybody by great surprise. We thought these bigger pictures would win the prizes, and the only thing I can remember us ever really talking about was the impulse to put Anthony Hopkins in the Best Supporting Category because his screen time was so relatively short. He was on screen for less than 20 minutes, which would seem to relegate him to Best Supporting Actor.”
Continuing, he let out how he shared that impulse with his team and how the outcome totally had him ‘freaked out’.
“I just said, ‘Look, you guys, let’s have as much fun as we can with this. That’s not a supporting performance. It’s an outstanding achievement in a leading role by a male. So let’s go for it.’ We all went out for the Academy Awards, and then…we started winning. I was just completely freaked out.”
Well, that reaction is justified, considering how he initially wanted to get Anthony Hopkins nominated for the Supporting Actors award!
Why Anthony Hopkins’ The Silence of the Lambs Was A Masterpiece
Not only was The Silence of the Lambs in the theatres for about five months, but it also topped the charts for at least six weeks in a row to be ranked as the number-one watched and loved movie by fans.
But there was more than just that that made it special: the scenes between Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster‘s Clarice Starling and the entire way that their relationship played out in the movie brought about something new for the audience. As Ted Tally continued to share:
“That is new, dramatically, [Jonathan] said. The way Lecter becomes involved in an active case in a teasing, manipulative way. Their whole relationship, their whole sort of wicked stepfather, sexual undertone, mental chess game that’s going on between them. Jonathan said, ‘I’ve never seen that before, and I don’t think anybody else has, and I think that makes this movie new.’”
However, at the same time, Tally gave the maximum credit to the book on which the film was made for the massive success of the movie.
“The thing is, the book was such a banquet, a feast. It became a matter of choosing wisely and, try not to overdo it. The book was an embarrassment of riches, great plot, and great characters. So it was a matter of selection, and editing, and redesign. It wasn’t a matter of invention so much.”
Regardless, had it not been for the cast and crew’s combined hard work and efforts, The Silence of the Lambs could have never been the masterpiece that it is remembered as, even today!
