Creator Bryan Fuller discusses ‘Hannibal’ season 2, Lecter is learning and Cynthia Nixon
In a new interview with The AV Club, creator and director Bryan Fuller discusses the details of Hannibal season 2 and how, even after just two episodes, Hannibal Lecter is growing and changing.
“It’s an education on how not to get caught,” Fuller begins in the new interview. “… so Hannibal is consulting on these cases with an eye for learning how the FBI does this, what are the things they track and trace, and how he can navigate around them to continue to be a free man.”
The new episodes introduce Cynthia Nixon as Kade Purnell. Fuller praises Nixon and what she brings to the show before explaining the new character.
“Kade Purnell is an anagram of a character from Hannibal, actually the Ray Liotta character. So it’s like, “Your anagrams are showing, Dr. Lecter.” We couldn’t get the rights to that character, because that character originated in Silence Of The Lambs. The character’s name was Paul Krendler, and we wanted to call her Paula Krendler, and they said no, because the way the rights go, it’s not by the literature, it’s actually by the character’s introduction. So if a character is first seen in Silence Of The Lambs, we’re screwed, as far as rights go. In order to change the character so it’s not that but sort of services the same mythology in the show and reinvent the character in a way that won’t get us sued, [Laughs.] we anagrammed her and made her slightly different from the character in both Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal to our own purposes.”
Fuller confessed his desire to get the rights to Lambs and make the circle complete.
“I would love for it to be, because I think it would be great if this show became canonical. I would love it for that reason, and we would absolutely go back to MGM and try to figure that out. But I think in order to get there, Gaumont, the studio that owns Hannibal, would have to come to some agreement with MGM that was mutually beneficial for both studios in order for us to have that happen. I’m going to keep trying.”
Check out the full interview HERE
Hannibal airs Fridays at 10pm EST on NBC