More than three decades after The Silence of the Lambs won the big five at the Oscars, one rumor refuses to die: that stars Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster clashed—or at least kept a frosty distance—on set. The myth has morphed over the years into a grab bag of alleged “feud” details, usually tied to Hopkins’ unsettling performance as Hannibal Lecter and the idea that Foster avoided him between takes to protect her headspace as Clarice Starling. Hopkins took a moment from his busy 2025 movie schedule to finally weigh in on the rumor.
Anthony Hopkins recently appeared on an episode of The Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepard. During the conversation, Hopkins addressed the long-circulating chatter head-on, saying the vibe with his co-star was professional and decidedly not “spooky.” It’s as definitive a correction as we’ve had in years, and it comes straight from Lecter himself. As he explains it:
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.
That’s a clear counterpoint to a story Foster has told. In 2016, on The Graham Norton Show, she addressed the same rumors and remembered the set very differently. As she recalled:
No, never spoke to him. He was scary! Because the scenes were so long, they’d kind of lock him in behind partitions at the beginning of the day, and we got to the end of the movie, and we’d really never had a conversation… I avoided him as much as I could. I really avoided him.
It’s a fascinating split in perspective—and not as odd as it sounds. As imposing as Lecter looms in our collective memory, he and Clarice actually share the screen for only about 16 minutes of a nearly two-hour film. Given that limited overlap, it makes sense they could pass whole shooting days with little interaction, even as each recalls the experience in very different ways.
Jonathan Demme’s film is famously precise, possessing tight blocking, direct-to-lens close-ups and long takes that force Clarice and Lecter into a psychological duel. That on-screen electricity rarely requires real-life animus; it usually comes from two actors trusting the same plan and director. The Welsh actor’s comments point to precisely that.
Jonathan Demme’s film is famously precise, possessing tight blocking, direct-to-lens close-ups and long takes that force Clarice and Lecter into a psychological duel. That on-screen electricity rarely requires real-life animus; it usually comes from two actors trusting the same plan and director. The Welsh actor’s comments point to precisely that.
Hannibal Lecter landed like a lightning strike in 1991, cementing him as one of the greatest horror movie villains, but that was with less than 25 minutes of screen time, and every syllable hits like a scalpel. Performances that iconic tend to spawn myths to explain the power. Sometimes those stories get juiced in the retelling. Hopkins’ version demystifies the rumors just a tad.
By the Hearts in Atlantis star’s account, the “feud” talk is way off base, and debunking it doesn’t dull the movie one bit. The Silence of the Lambs is still a masterclass in performance and tone, driven by two leads who knew precisely what the film needed. His clarification just underscores a simple truth: great on-screen chemistry doesn’t require off-screen drama.
Want more Hopkins right now? His latest film, Locked (co-starring Bill Skarsgård), is streaming with a Hulu subscription. You can also grab his new memoir, We Did OK, Kid: A Memoir by Anthony Hopkins, wherever books are sold.
As for The Silence of the Lambs, you can revisit Lecter in all his horrifying glory with a subscription to AMC+.
