The Silence of the Lambs/Characters

Characters from the film/book series by Thomas Harris focused on serial killer Hannibal Lecter. The Film Series have their own character folders, with characters appearing under the film they first appeared in.

Manhunter
Characters from Manhunter, the 1986 film adaptation of the book Red Dragon.

Agent Will Graham
"Played By: William Petersen"


 * Badass Bookworm
 * Berserk Button: Graham doesn't like it when people bring up his past experience with Lecktor.
 * The Danza: William Petersen as William "Will" Graham.
 * FBI Agent
 * Guile Hero
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: This feels at times like an extended audition by William Petersen for his role as Grissom on CSI.
 * The Mentally Disturbed: Peteren's Graham is much more in conflict with his own inner darkness and almost seconds away from snapping than Norton's Graham.
 * One Last Job
 * Perpetual Frowner
 * The Profiler
 * Locked Into Strangeness: Graham's hair has some gray tinges, due to his experience with Lecktor.
 * Shirtless Scene: Petersen gets a few.

Dr. Hannibal Lektor
"Played by: Brian Cox"

"Lecktor: You want the scent? Smell yourself."
 * Evilly Affable
 * It Amused Me
 * Manipulative Bastard
 * Not So Different: Lektor tells this to Graham. And what's scary is that he seems to be right.


 * Serial Killer: Of course.
 * Smug Snake: In contrast to Hopkins' Lecter.
 * Spell My Name With An K: Lecktor?
 * Three Scene Wonder: Lecktor appears in only three scenes, but he casts a pall over the entire film. Cox's take on him is a slimy, reptilian version, with cold, black eyes and a seemingly toothless mouth.

Francis Dolarhyde
"Played by: Tom Noonan"

"You owe me awe."


 * Tragic Monster

Jack Crawford
"Played by: Dennis Farina"


 * Badass Mustache: Sports a big and bushy one.
 * Da Chief

Freddie Lounds
"Played by Stephen Lang"


 * Adaptational Attractiveness: Book Lang is fat, ugly, and has buck teeth. Here, he’s played by the quite handsome Stephen Lang.
 * Jerkass
 * Papparazi

Dr. Hannibal Lecter
"Played By: Anthony Hopkins "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.""


 * Affably Evil: Lecter is usually unfailingly polite...providing the company is polite in return.
 * Aristocrats Are Evil: Hannibal was retconned into being aristocracy.
 * Belated Backstory
 * Berserk Button: Just try to insult or harm Clarice Starling, and see how long you last. Remember what happened to Miggs, Chilton, and Krendler? Yeah, that's right.
 * Big Bad Friend: Acts like this in the opening for the Red Dragon movie, where he seems
 * Boxed Crook
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Dr. Lecter is incarcerated, but still writes highly respected articles for psychiatric journals.
 * The Chessmaster
 * Combat Pragmatist: Lecter, Lecter, Lecter. In his deranged Crowning Moment of Awesome he  Then listens to a piece of classical music that makes the cell kind of like a high-end restaurant.
 * It was Johann Sebastian Bach's The Goldberg Variations, recorded by Glenn Gould in 1955.
 * Cultured Badass
 * Creepy Monotone
 * Dead Little Sister: One of the main problems people have with the latter two books. Giving Hannibal one of these causes instant Villain Decay.
 * Trying to turn another woman into his Dead Little Sister and then have sex with her compounds this. On the other hand, a few others did a Slasher Smile.
 * Diabolical Mastermind
 * Dissonant Serenity
 * Enemy Rising Behind: Hannibal does this.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Lecter is genuinely disgusted with Mason, Chilton and Krendler.
 * Faux Affably Evil: Lecter. He gets away with being both this and Affably Evil; Faux Affably Evil is for the people he's messing with. Or plans to eat, or serve. Or is eating or serving.
 * Freudian Excuse: Thanks to retconning. The most hilariously, unintentionally ridiculous Freudian Excuse ever:  As executed, it made everything else about Lecter mention by others (like Doemling) mesh better (and completed the Failure Knight analogy hinted at since the previous book), but the extension of it into a full story pretty much throws out Lecter's initial characterisation as a Complete Monster.
 * Believe it or not, this Freudian excuse could be based on a Truth in Television. The infamous Ukrainian cannibal Andrei Chikatilo was told growing up that his brother was cannibalized by neighbors during the Holodomor (massive famines caused by Soviet agricultural policy).
 * Hannibal Lecture: Trope Namer.
 * I'm a Humanitarian
 * Insufferable Genius: As Jack Crawford puts it to Starling, "He's very likely right, and he could have told you why, but he wanted to tease you with it. It's the only weakness I ever saw in him — he has to look smart, smarter than everybody. He's been doing it for years."
 * Karma Houdini - Lecter is this in spades, though Thomas Harris admitted he had grown to like his character so much this trope became inevitable.
 * At the end of the Hannibal novel Lecter even.
 * * Kubrick Stare: This is Lecter's default expression when revving up the creepy.
 * Manipulative Bastard
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate
 * One-Scene Wonder: Anthony Hopkins won a Best Leading Actor for only 24 minutes of screen time.
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the books, Lecter is described as having maroon (brownish-red) eyes.
 * Lecter appears with bright red eyes in some posters for Hannibal and Hannibal Rising.
 * Red Right Hand
 * Serial Killer
 * Shipped in Shackles: Lecter, with his iconic mask, is the Trope Codifier. Many franchises have imitated the image as shorthand to indicate Lecter-inspired characters.
 * Small Role, Big Impact: Was a minor character in the book and has limited screen time in the movie, but he is a major force in moving the story forward.
 * Sociopathic Hero
 * The Sociopath
 * Stalker with a Crush: Lecter definitely counts in relation to Starling.
 * Throw It In: Ft-ft-ft-ft-ft-ft.
 * Timeshifted Actor
 * Villain Protagonist: Lector in Silence.
 * Wicked Cultured: His pathology is centred around this trope, as he eats (and serves) his victims as exquisite meals, apparently to prove how much better he is than them; or, in Starling's words, "show his disdain for those who exacerbate him" (or, sometimes, to perform a "public service"). Apart from this, and a more general love of fine dining and drink, he enjoys classical music, is a highly talented artist, and has sufficient knowledge of Dante, the Rennaisance and Renaissance literature to get a temp job as a library curator at a Florentine museum, and impress the board enough to nearly make it permanent.

Agent Clarice Starling
"Played By: Jodie Foster & Julianne Moore"


 * Action Girl: So much.
 * Alone with the Psycho
 * Badass
 * Failure Knight: With Dead Little Lambs forming the center of the story's central analogy.
 * Fair Cop: Whether played by Jodie Foster or Julianne Moore.
 * FBI Agent
 * Knight in Sour Armor
 * Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Julianne Moore sometimes has Clarice's accent and sometimes does not. To be fair, it was established in The Silence of the Lambs that was she was trying to lose her accent.
 * Pride: Her driving motivation.
 * Worthy Opponent: Lector considers her to be this.

Jack Crawford
"Played By: Scott Glenn & Harvey Keitel "Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.""


 * Badass Bookworm
 * FBI Agent
 * Manipulative Bastard
 * The Mentor

Jame Gumb AKA Buffalo Bill
"Played By: Ted Levine "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.""


 * The Collector of the Strange
 * Effeminate Misogynistic Guy
 * Freudian Excuse
 * Genuine Human Hide
 * Lack of Empathy
 * Psychopathic Manchild
 * Villainous Crossdresser
 * Serial Killer
 * Sissy Villain
 * Troubled Abuser

Frederick Chilton
"Played By: Anthony Heald "Oh my, does he hate us. Thinks I'm his nemesis.""


 * Asshole Victim
 * Jerkass
 * Manipulative Bastard
 * Smug Snake
 * Slime Ball

Barney Matthews
"Played By: Frankie Faison"


 * Nice Guy
 * Morality Pet: for Lecter.

Sgt. Boyle
"Played By: Charles Napier"


 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Boyle is beaten with his own club, and then crucified in Lecter’s cell.
 * Jerkass: Uncooperative and passiver aggressive towards Clarice and threatens to beat Lecter for ordering a second dinner.

Mason Verger
"Played By: Gary Oldman "When the fox hears the rabbit scream he comes a-runnin'... but not to help.""


 * Asshole Victim
 * Big Bad: of Hannibal.
 * Non-Action Big Bad
 * Depraved Bisexual
 * Facial Horror
 * Evil Cripple
 * Evil Makes You Ugly

Paul Krendler
"Played By: Ray Liotta "Oh my, does he hate us. Thinks I'm his nemesis.""


 * Asshole Victim
 * Dirty Cop
 * Jerkass
 * Smug Snake

Chief Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi
"Played By: Giancarlo Giannini"


 * Anti-Villain
 * Humiliation Conga
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist

Dr Cordell Doemling
"Played By: Zeljko Ivanek "One's eyes adjust to the darkness.""


 * Butt Monkey
 * The Dog Bites Back
 * Minion with an F In Evil
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate
 * Punch Clock Villain

Agent Will Graham
"Played By: Edward Norton"


 * Badass Bookworm
 * FBI Agent
 * Guile Hero
 * Not So Different
 * One Last Job
 * Perpetual Frowner
 * Photographic Memory
 * The Profiler

Francis Dolarhyde
"Played By: Ralph Fiennes "Before me, you rightly tremble. But, fear is not what you owe me. You owe me awe!""


 * Ax Crazy
 * Big Bad: of Red Dragon.
 * Blind and the Beast: The Beast.
 * Bring My Brown Pants: As a child, when it was perfectly normal. His grandmother viewed it differently, threatening to castrate him. It becomes something of a Berserk Button for him.
 * Freudian Excuse
 * Genius Bruiser
 * Gollum Made Me Do It
 * Red Right Hand
 * Split Personality
 * The Stoic
 * Not So Stoic
 * Sympathetic Murderer
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds

Reba Mc Clane
"Played By: Emily Watson "If there's anything I hate worse than pity, it's fake pity.""


 * Blind and the Beast: The blind.
 * Disabled Love Interest
 * Disabled Snarker
 * Morality Pet: for Dolarhyde.
 * Twofer Token Minority: She lampshades this.

Molly Graham
"Played By: Mary-Louise Parker"


 * Took a Level In Badass

Freddy Lounds
"Played By: Phillip Seymour Hoffman"


 * Jerkass
 * Paparazzi
 * Paparazzi