Casting Silence of the Lambs
Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Derek Jacobi, and Daniel Day-Lewis all turned down the role for Hannibal in The Silence of the Lambs. I can't actually imagine any of them in the role. Anthony Hopkins was just too perfect for it. Hopkins based his interpretation of the role on HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/The_Silence_of_the_Lambs_poster.jpg)