18 TV favorites returning in Summer 2015

From 'Rectify' to 'Review' to 'True Detective,' it's a big summer of returning shows

By Alan Sepinwall, Daniel Fienberg Monday, May 25, 2015 12:00 PM


"Hannibal" (NBC) - June 4

Reasons to be excited about season 3: 1)Gillian Anderson is now a cast regular as Hannibal Lecter's therapist and traveling companion, Dr. Du Maurier; 2)Richard Armitage is great casting as Francis Dolarhyde, the primary villain of "Red Dragon" (also made in the movies as "Manhunter"); 3)This was already one of TV's most compelling, beautiful, horrifying series, and Dr. Lecter having dropped his secret identity to become a fugitive from justice should only make things more fun.
-Alan Sepinwall

The HeyUGuys Interview: Bryan Fuller on Hannibal Series 3 – Part 1

May 27, 2015

To date, Hannibal the TV series has lived up to increasing expectations and we are now eagerly awaiting season three. The man responsible for bringing the series to life and, indeed, to the small screen, Bryan Fuller, has ‘Fannibals’ and the entire ‘Fulliverse’ eating out of the palm of his hand, figuratively speaking.

We speak to the man himself, in what is the first of a two part interview, where we discuss the new season of Hannibal and more.

No fava beans were harmed in the making of this interview…

Last time we spoke you said you wanted to shoot Hannibal somewhere warm. Looks like you got your wish for season three…

[laughs] It was a noble effort.

We still shot in Canada for all but five days but having those five days of exteriors in Florence was such a great gift. The first half of the season is such a departure of what we’ve done in the first two seasons.

It really was a breath of fresh air getting away from the crime procedural aspect of the story of investigations with the FBI which I’ve always bristled against. It is so ubiquitous on television where everyone and their dog are doing a crime procedural show.

It is hard to make that world unique because of the proliferation of shows covering that territory. It was a great creative relief to leave that behind and tell a story that is predominantly, if not solely, character driven.

Being able to weed in an influx of new characters into the world as well as radically change the characters we have established, in such a way that it feels like a different show. That, I found, to be very creatively fulfilling.

What was it like to take the show to Italy given its significance to the books?

One of the stipulations I had to return to a season three was to be able to that. I didn’t want to return to it if we couldn’t tell the Italian story. So that was one of the conditions of me doing season three that we absolutely must embrace that aspect of the book.

Also it allowed us to continue to tell the story of the Vergers, who we set up at the end of season two and fans of the novel and the brilliant Ridley Scott film are familiar with it.

Speaking of which, Joe Anderson has now taken over the role of Mason Verger from Michael Pitt.

Yes, we cast Joe Anderson who I adore and think he brings his own brand of crazy to the character and absolutely makes him his own.

What was fascinating when I first started talking to him about the character is that he was familiar with the show but his reps didn’t tell him who the character was that we wanted him to play. We were talking and he started watching the episodes and was very complimentary of the world we were crafting.

So he was like, who is this character you want me to play? I asked, did you see the Ridley Scott film? You’re playing the Gary Oldman character. He was like, you want me to play that guy? Do I pay you?

He was so enthusiastic and excited about stepping into those shoes and it was a natural place to shift gear with an actor because of the disfigurement. So really a lot of Joe is buried scarred prosthetics but he does so much with his eyes and the pieces of him that are visible.

The transition is not necessarily seamless because his performance is different to that of Michael Pitts’ and that was one of the things important to me out of respect for Joe and his craft.

I think he pulls more from Gary Oldman than what Michael Pitt did in the second season, which was brilliant, but whenever you are working with actors you want the actor to make the best choices for them as a performer rather than walking them into a prefigured role.

A lot of fans liked the bro-mance, albeit a very strange one, between Will and Hannibal. Is that now well and truly over?

I would not say that…

I think there’s an interesting ark for Will Graham in this season where Hannibal has did horrible things to him but he has also been the best friend he has ever had – that is a lot to reconcile. So when Will says he forgives Hannibal he is genuinely forgiving him for his trespasses.

He accepts that Hannibal is a shark and you cannot fault a shark for being a shark. On that level he understands and forgives but that does not necessarily mean they are going to move on hand-in-hand into the sunset.

There is still a resolution that both of these characters are seeking for their own piece of mind. The first season was the bro-mance, the second was the break-up and now there’s the awkward reconciliation of how do we coexist or un-coexist.


It is now clear where Gillian Andersons’ character, Bedelia, loyalties lie but she still seems to be morally ambiguous…

Yes, absolutely. She’s no dummy in that regard, she knows who she’s dealing with. Bedelia is trying to navigate him in a way that we will see that proves she is just as smart as Hannibal – just as conniving and self-reliant.

It was very important for me to tell the tale not of a pathetic woman who has fallen in love with a serial killer because she believes she can change him. That would dishonour both the character and the actress.

That’s not how Gillian has been playing Bedelia. What we’ve had to do is extrapolate from everything we’ve experienced from Bedelia and Hannibal to then find a way legitimately and authentically that she could go on this trip with him.

Essentially it’s because she is his psychiatrist and she will always be first and foremost in any other aspect of their relationship. She just happens to be treating a man who is on the loose but is being very careful to make sure that she survives the therapy as well.

There have been some insane props so far with various dismembered bodies. Have you taken any for your house?

Yes [laughs]. I actually have a limbless Eddie Izzard sitting in my garage and I am sure he’ll find that very disturbing.

You’re a big sci-fi guy but do you collect any memorabilia?

I have a few things. There was something that came up at auction recently that I am still kicking myself that I didn’t watch the auction more closely to obtain. It was such a pivotal part of my childhood that I am shaking my fists at the gods that I didn’t closely watch the auction.

It was the hand of death from the Monty Python Meaning of Life pointing at the Salmon mouse. I tried to get it and bid high on it but of course got swept up in production. When I checked on it I lost and was like, fuck!

I desperately wanted that piece so whoever is reading this and has that piece give me a call and we’ll make a deal.

In the past you’ve spoken about working on projects that were unfortunately cancelled. Have you mapped out for future seasons of Hannibal?

Well, I am absolutely prepared for the eventuality of a possible season four and prepared to end it at season three.

At the end of every season, I very consciously paint ourselves into a corner with the idea of how to unpaint us out. I painted us into a very particular corner for season three that allows season four to be a huge creative shift in the show that actually does something so completely different than what we’ve been doing in the past three years that is exciting creatively.

When I told Hugh and Mads what I planning for season four they were giddy.

The Urbanity of Evil: Bryan Fuller and Hannibal's Rogues Gallery
Oriana Schwindt | May 27, 2015 6:00am

The first two seasons of Hannibal, for the most part, kept its title character shrouded in darkness. Quite literally: In nearly every scene, Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) is only half lit, one side lost in shadow. We know he's a cannibal who despises the rude, a natty dresser with an Eastern European accent, the psychiatrist to Will Graham (Hugh Dancy); otherwise, he's a cipher.

This is not a complaint. Pre-exposure Hannibal demands to be treated as a mystery. As played by Mikkelsen, Lecter is Lucifer as we have never seen him: urbane, considerate, even romantic, a serial people-eater by whom viewers are nevertheless entranced. Even as he commits the unforgivable sin of allowing Will Graham's brain to fry from encephalitis, there's something compelling about him, something that draws you closer than you'd like. "There are people who are attracted to someone like Hannibal Lecter and repelled at the same time," executive producer Bryan Fuller says. "It's that careful balance of, 'I'm close to the fire, but when do I actually get burned?'"

The kind of villain Hannibal represents is, in some ways, more terror-inducing than any monster under the bed. "One of my favorite horror movies is Rosemary's Baby," Fuller explains. "She goes to the doctors, these people who are so trusted—we depend on them to be honest and forthright with us—and the suggestion that their motives may not be pure is so unnerving. With the monster under the bed, at least you know what its motives are."

The Hannibal seen in the beginning of Season 3 is still all of the above, suave and scarily smart. He is also brazenly chowing his way through professori Florentine, in front of semi-coerced "companion" Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson), and with the gusto of someone who has gotten away with many, many murders. Therein lies the difference: "Hannibal Lecter, once fully exposed, has no reason to hide his brutality," says Fuller, for whom the fun truly begins this season. "The first seven episodes are what I've always wanted to do with the show," he adds. "We finally have Hannibal as the antihero he's always been. We have the opportunity to go Grand Guignol."

That gives Fuller a little more leeway to give in to his instincts towards dark—some might argue pitch-black—humor. There are triple entendres about how certain kinds of flesh should taste, jokes about who killed whom. "Some of Mads' reactions to things are so impish," Fuller says with obvious glee. "He's got such a twinkle in his eye."

But even a monster can suffer a broken heart—or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. "With somebody like Hannibal Lecter, there is a curiosity about emotions," says Fuller. "He's not afraid to try them on and see if they fit." In light of his "grief" over Will Graham selling him out to the FBI, one could say the first few episodes of the new season are Hannibal attempting to eat his feelings.

As in a video game with just one boss, a show with only one villain would quickly become tiresome. Fuller and his writers are experts at crafting baddies whole cloth in addition to drawing from Thomas Harris' oeuvre:

There's the fleshed-out Minnesota Shrike, whose case began the Breaking of Will Graham.

There's Eddie Izzard's chillingly funny Dr. Abel Gideon, convinced he'd committed the crimes actually perpetrated by Hannibal Lecter.

There's the from-the-canon Mason Verger, who literally drinks the tears of orphans. For Season 3, Joe Anderson has stepped in for Michael Pitt as the (almost cartoonishly) evil hog magnate, whom we'll see for an arc that starts in Episode 4. Not that anyone's likely to notice a difference, appearance-wise. That's what happens when Hannibal decides you're in need of some comeuppance, pumps you full of psychotropics, and then coaxes you into cutting your face off and feeding it to Will Graham's dogs. "Everybody's plotting [this season]," says Fuller. "Him above all."

There's the mysterious Neal Frank (Zachary Quinto), whom we'll only see in two episodes: The premiere (as a dead body) and Episode 10, as a patient of Bedelia—the one who attacked her, and whom she subsequently killed, and whose murder Hannibal helped her cover up, tying the two inextricably together.

There's Francis Dolarhyde, the Red Dragon, whose story will take up the latter half of Season 3. In Michael Mann's 1986 film adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon, the serial killer (played by Tom Noonan) came off as more of an alien being than a person. In Brett Ratner's 2006 version, Ralph Fiennes created a terrifying but oddly childlike monster. Fuller's Red Dragon, as played by Richard Armitage, will be more than a bogeyman—he's a representation of the struggle between sanity and insanity, rather than Good vs. Evil, which makes him all the more compelling. As with all good villains, Fuller and Co. have written Dolarhyde as though he were the protagonist in his own story.

"We're not going to make it easy on you," Fuller warns. "This man who falls for a blind woman and wants to take her to the zoo to enjoy the animals, who has arranged for her to actually touch them because she can't see them—that is one of the most beautiful gestures I've seen in a romantic story. Yet it happens to be buried in the horror of a terrible, terrible killer of families. You see that this man is a contradiction; he is capable of beautiful and terrible things. And you can root against the monster, but you also need to root for the man, and hope he defeats the monster." Fuller is careful, though, to point out that the fictional nature of the story makes this cognitive dissonance a little easier to handle.

A character walking that kind of tightrope necessitates the casting of an actor like Armitage. "It felt like it was Shakespearean in its storytelling, this battle for sanity," Fuller says. "With Richard Armitage—who is a wonderfully trained actor, trained in theater—we found someone who could embrace the madness and generate great sympathy for what he is struggling with." (For the record, Fuller pronounces the surname "Arm-i-tahj," giving it the gravitas it probably deserves.)

Fuller rarely refers to his characters by their first names—it's nearly always the Full Monty. "Hannibal Lecter." "Will Graham." "Bedelia Du Maurier." "Alana Bloom." (Caroline Dhavernas' Alana will be back this season, incidentally, and Fuller promises he's given her a story that does not place her in secondary position to a man.) It reflects the deep empathy and respect he has for them, something evident in the show's writing. "We're all looking for connection," Fuller reasons. "They're all asking, 'How do I not feel alone in the universe?'" he says, "seeking out families to deal with their issues."

Serial Killers: They're Just Like Us.

Hannibal Season 3 premires Thursday, June 4 (10/9c, NBC).

Hugh Dancy Talks Obsession, Twisted Love and ‘Hannibal’s’ Third Season
Wednesday, May 27th, 2015 at 10:58am PST - by Bryan Cairns


Not many people can match wits with serial killer Hannibal Lecter, but Will Graham, played by Emmy nominee Hugh Dancy, is one of them.

The FBI profiler may have fallen prey to the charm of the good doctor (Mads Mikkelsen), but that spell wavered when he deduced his friend’s true nature. Their game of cat and mouse came to a head in “Hannibal’s” Season 2 finale that seemingly left Will, Jack (Laurence Fishburne) and Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) dead, and Hannibal jetting off to begin a new life.

On the Toronto set of NBC’s psychological thriller, Dancy sat down with journalists to discuss the aftermath of that bloodbath, Will’s state of mind in Season 3, his character’s relationship with Lecter, and the introduction of Chiyoh from the “Hannibal Rising” novel.

How is Will different after last season’s events?

Hugh Dancy: He has trouble digesting. I think he flirted as closely as he’s ever going to with that idea of joining Hannibal in some kind of buddy comedy. Whatever the dream was that they would go off into the horizon together, that was the closest he came to allowing that dream to blossom in his own mind. Now, it’s a different kind of parity that he’s got. He can’t walk away. He can’t just let Hannibal go off into the sunset. He’s got to see it through. The purpose of it is almost moot, whether it’s revenge, whether it’s reconciliation, whether it’s forgiveness.


One different approach from the movies is that every character seems to not only be attracted or fascinated by Hannibal, but they want to emulate him. Was that something you considered when preparing your character?

I think that I was always interested by the idea of influence. This is obviously taken to a huge extreme. Hannibal is highly manipulative and very interested in going inside somebody and lifting up the rug and seeing what’s underneath. It’s a little surprising how everybody in the show has the capacity to be a psychopath. Maybe there’s a fair point there about us all. I think, just on a more human level, when I was thinking about it before we started the show, that we have the capacity to be influenced by people, to let them into our bubble. We try to preserve our own sense of who we are, but at the same time, you don’t want to go through life cut off. “Great, I know exactly who I am.” You need some sway. I personally find that very interesting, the blurry edges of personality. That’s where I was coming from.

When you began reading the scripts for the third season, were there certain threads you were curious about?

I guess I was interested to know how Bryan [Fuller, series creator] would approach it. I had spoken to him, of course. “Were we going to start off back in the kitchen and everyone is still bleeding?” Secondly, knowing Hannibal is going to go on a journey, and knowing that I’m going to go after him in some way, what exactly that drive was. Of course, what Bryan did is basically not answer any of those questions. I think that the first four episodes of the season are really interesting. When I first read them, I was thinking, “What’s he doing here?”

Then it dawned on me that he is playing with time because what happened in that situation, where Hannibal slaughtered everybody almost, is still circulating for all of them. It’s still right there. It’s present in the way a traumatic event is present. The first episode where, as I think Bryan has already said, we’re off with Hannibal and Bedelia [Gillian Anderson] and having a fine time. Then, suddenly we’re back with Will, we’re back in the second episode, we’re back into this kind of circling dream world, where he’s back in the kitchen. He’s coming up to Hannibal. He’s with Abigail. He’s not with Abigail. It’s not moving forward in the normal way. The third episode is something else. The fourth episode it circles back. I think is a very bold and really provocative way to write television. I also think it means that you don’t get any answers until much later.

There is no Sherlock without Moriarty. Can we have Hannibal without Will?

I think probably, but he’d be very bored.


Can you talk about this chess game between the two characters, where they are always trying to figure out each other’s next move?

I think it’s difficult. I don’t think either of them really understand it. On the surface, it’s very clear. Initially, Will didn’t even know what he was dealing with. Then he was trying to maybe catch Hannibal. As I said, this season Will doesn’t even know what he wants anymore. He just knows he has to get Will to admit that he’s really bad and likes to kill people. Clearly, it’s not just that either. There’s a vortex that they can’t help spiraling around each other. All I will say is I think that as we get further into the season, that will get addressed very clearly.

It sounds like Will gets a partner once he arrives in Italy. Can you talk a little bit about her, their dynamic and do they have the same agenda?

To answer the last question first, this being a Bryan Fuller show, who knows? Yes, this is Chiyoh that I think you are talking about, who is Lady Murasaki’s maid servant and still is in Castle Lecter when I arrive there on my quest to essentially go back to the origin of Hannibal. She’s there kind of by choice and kind of not. She, like Will, has a very clear understanding of who Hannibal is and what he is capable of. You could say she’s torn in a similar way to Will about his character. Then we set off together in another incredibly, unlikely development of taking a train across Europe. It was great. Just really fun and off to suddenly play with different people in this very heightened little universe. Also, expect a patsy, who is obviously from the novels, but inserted here. Another person with his own agenda when it comes to going after Hannibal.

In the show, we see different kinds of pleasures: food and murder, with an underlying tone of sex. Is there sexual tension between Hannibal and Will?

There’s absolutely some form of love, twisted love, or whatever it is. The analogy I’ve always used is for Will, it’s like for his whole life he’s been not only a great chess player, but in fact the only person in the whole world who knows the rules of chess. Then another person walks in the room, who’s also a genius chess player and that sense of relief and gratitude and recognition is powerful.

There is kind of the feeling of falling in love, like, “Oh, my God. I see you. I really see you.” Of course, the fact is he doesn’t see Hannibal at that point, but, nonetheless, whatever it is between them, is there from the beginning. I think it’s platonic, but I think at a certain point it’s bigger than either of them. Hannibal wants to be more in control, but actually he’s willing to burn everything down to have contact with Will. At a certain point, that covers your whole world. I don’t think it’s sexual, but I think it’s bigger than that to be honest.

As Will, Jack and Alana close in on Hannibal, who’s really the hunter and who is the prey?

Aren’t we all both? I mean, in this show we are anyway. Nobody is only victimized, with the possible exception of Frederick Chilton.

Hannibal' Season 3 Review: The Bold Gets Bolder


Great TV can come from anywhere. However, as we’ve already seen this week through UnREAL and Mr. Robot, there are some sources it’s more expected from than others, and it’s through this prism how many view NBC’s Hannibal. The world at large (at least in regard to those that watch it based on the current ratings) seems to be in agreement that Hannibal is great television despite calling NBC home, and the reasons for this are rather clear. Hannibal is interesting, dynamic, complex and, most of all, bold. Heading into season three, it’s that last quality that can best describe the first three new episodes of 2015 for they are indeed the boldest pieces of storytelling the show has produced in its time since beginning in 2013.

Following the bloody events of the season two finale, Hannibal rejoins its title character in France as he lives under a new name and new profession with Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier. However, things are not as the good psychiatrist had hoped. Hannibal’s grown lonely without his most intriguing subject, Will Graham, to play his complex games of cat and mouse with. Unfortunately, this fact does not bode well for those closest to the fleeing killer.

Since the first scenes of its pilot episode, Hannibal has firmly established its ability to play outside the norm of broadcast television. But, regardless of how far the series pushed the envelope in seasons one and two, it goes to a whole new level in season three. Not only does the premiere feature a distinct lack of Graham’s character – in present form, imaginary vision or otherwise – but it doesn’t even stick to standard television cues. Often, the episode switches from a 16:9 to 2:21 aspect ratio and shifts in color palette at times to signify specific narrative tools are being used. Just on a purely visual level, the premiere episode is, quite possibly, the most avant-garde hour of small screen media to ever exist.


It’s a trend that’s continued throughout the two following episodes as well. Visuals are askew, screen imaginary is both creative and terrifying and the things we’ve come to expect from broadcast television – like main characters speaking – are tossed aside in order to drive Hannibal down its most enticing road yet. For the first time, it truly appears NBC and producing studio Gaumont have stepped aside to the point where the only thing holding the show back are the desires and limitation of creator/showrunner Bryan Fuller himself.

Hannibal is in the prime of its creativity, and that statement comes through no clearer than it does this season. Nothing about the show feels cheap, and every new reveal is completely earned. Often, the show goes to places that take the audience right to the brink of their expectation before shattering their assumptions into more pieces than the psychopath’s tea glass. If anyone was waiting for Hannibal to be let off the leash NBC may or may not have had it on, the wait is over. Season three is a Hannibal unhinged. Season three is the Hannibal everyone has been waiting to see.

Hannibal premieres Thursday, June 4th at 10/9c on NBC

Hannibal' Season 3: Zachary Quinto's Character Revealed PLUS 3 Other Spoilers
by Jess Goodwin 37m ago


We had a hunch about who Zachary Quinto is playing on Season 3 of Hannibal, and spoiler alert — we totally nailed it. According to TV Insider, who spoke with showrunner Bryan Fuller, the Star Trek actor will appear in two episodes as Bedelia’s (Gillian Anderson) patient Neal Frank — and he’s not just any patient. Neal is “the one who attacked her, and whom she subsequently killed, and whose murder Hannibal [Mads Mikkelsen] helped her cover up, tying the two inextricably together.”

Neal will first appear in the premiere “as a dead body,” in one of the scenes that will inform us of Bedelia’s relationship with Hannibal, then again in Episode 10, as what will either be another flashback, or possibly a vision or hallucination.

The Antihero

Now that everyone knows Hannibal for what he is, he can truly — and publicly — be the monster we’ve always known he is.

“Hannibal Lecter, once fully exposed, has no reason to hide his brutality,” Fuller revealed. “The first seven episodes are what I’ve always wanted to do with the show. We finally have Hannibal as the antihero he’s always been. We have the opportunity to go Grand Guignol.”

(Grand Guignol, for those wondering, was a Parisian theater specializing in horror shows, and doubles as a term for graphic horror.)



Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) might commit unspeakable acts this season, but he’ll be kind of a lovable monster.

“We’re not going to make it easy on you,” said Fuller. “This man who falls for a blind woman and wants to take her to the zoo to enjoy the animals, who has arranged for her to actually touch them because she can’t see them — that is one of the most beautiful gestures I’ve seen in a romantic story. Yet it happens to be buried in the horror of a terrible, terrible killer of families.”

Fuller went on to say that while fans can “root against the monster,” they should also “root for the man.” We’re sure we will — which will make it all the more heartbreaking when you consider Dolarhyde’s fate in Red Dragon.

The Plotter

Ah, Mason Verger. Now played by Michael Pitt replacement Joe Anderson, we’ll see the “evil hog magnate” spending most of his time plotting Hannibal’s demise. His arc will begin in Episode 4 and likely conclude in Episode 7 (which is a midseason finale of sorts) — and if Fuller stays true to Mason’s original story, it’ll conclude forever.



Hannibal returns on its new night, Thursday, June 4 at 10

Deliciously DifferentBy Zac Thompson on May 28, 2015@ZacBeThompson
Hannibal, image courtesy of NBC
The third season of NBC’s Hannibal is set to premiere next week, and when tuning in you’ll notice a decidedly different and perhaps even darker show than what left last year. We’ve already praised Hannibal as the best show of last year. But, season three perhaps elevates the darkly gothic drama to new heights.

In the three episodes watched for early review, there are many new faces, an entirely new setting, and an even darker tone. There will be some slight spoilers ahead, but because this is pre-air coverage we’re going to keep this review as general as possible.

It should come as no secret that Will Graham is alive after the events of last season. Hannibal has relocated to the heart of Italy with Bedelia. Her shocking compliance in aiding Hannibal at the end of the second season is the focal point of the entire first episode. It provides a more intimate look at the titular character than the show has ever provided. We’ve often been treated to only glimpses of the sinister man behind the elegance, and this first episode peels back the top layer entirely.

It’s an emotional character deconstruction that compounded with every scene. Gillian Anderson’s performance pushes Mads Mikkelson in ways never thought possible. Her portrayal is pained and distant – less engaged than previously but brought to life in an entirely new way that doesn’t align with the woman we used to know.

This juxtaposition continues throughout the bulk of these first three episodes. Bryan Fuller creates meticulously detailed scripts that define his characters in completely unpredictable ways.

Will recovers from last seasons trauma after 8 months. He’s got a renewed fixation on Hannibal. But within every moment of confidence comes several of doubt. The second episode of the season is a beautiful dance between confidence and delusion with the audience left somewhere in the middle. Will is so confident of his understanding and relationship with Hannibal that it transgresses the boundaries previously laid forth by the show.

The Will we know is still there. He has a fantastic lead on Hannibal’s motives. But the show layers his efforts with several leading irregularities. It pushes to undermine Will’s character but reestablishes it at every turn – and he now exists on noticeably shaky ground. For characters that are so well defined to feel this broken and unpredictable is a triumph.

It forces a new perspective onto Will’s fixation and shows a man who’s flirting with an eternal monster. Hannibal has always been a show about devotion and love. This third season reexamines those themes with an even more overt lens than before. (I’m sure much to the delight of the Tumblr shippers out there.) But, it paints an interesting portrait of Will’s future and casts doubt on whether or not he was more at home behind bars.

Mads Mikkelson is again a tour-de-force in his portrayal of Hannibal. But, here he’s more confident, scary, and unpredictable than ever. The early episodes of this season do a lot of work to peel back the layers of his façade. He is still very much a monster, but within that lies a more human side. He’s somehow more engaging than ever before but riddled with contradictions.

The visual style of the show is similarly riddled with new definitions. The scenery of Italy allows for a new visual feast of time lapses, but the sinister hallucinatory landscape of Will’s mind is elevated further and faster than ever before. The stag-man still lurks in the darkness, but if you think he had horrors to show you before you haven’t seen anything yet.

As much as Hannibal’s second season worked to redefine the narrative – season three elevates it in pretty much every way possible. It’s a revelation for the character, plot progression, and visual insanity. It firmly re-establishes Hannibal as the best horror show on television, and simply cannot be missed.



—

I’ll be running weekly reviews – along with spoilers as the episodes air.

Von Richard retweetet - weil ganz ohne Francis Dolarhyde ?

Bryan Fuller interview: Hannibal season 3, Red Dragon, American Gods

Interview Louisa Mellor 29 May 2015 - 06:00

As Hannibal season 3 arrives, we chat to showrunner Bryan Fuller about origin stories, Francis Dolarhyde, David Bowie & more…




The long wait to find out who survived The Red Dinner (aka Hannibal’s spectacular season two finale, Mizumono) is almost over. Hannibal season three is nearly upon us, and to mark its arrival, we caught up with showrunner Bryan Fuller to find out what’s in store.

Firstly, we’re due to meet a different kind of Hannibal in a very different kind of setting. Fuller’s James Bond fandom has leached into the first seven-episode chapter of the season, which sees Mads Mikkelsen’s chicly dressed predator living undercover in the upper echelons of Italian society. The season’s second six-episode chapter introduces Richard Armitage as Francis Dolarhyde, a character familiar to Red Dragon fans.

We chatted to Fuller about the show’s revised take on Hannibal’s origin story, James Bond, Red Dragon, David Bowie, Star Trek, and Starz' in-development adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods…

You wrapped season three last month, congratulations!

[Laughs] We’re actually still in exile in post, so it feels like it’s still going on.

Can you take us back to the precise moment in production for season three when you realised that the show needed more time?

You mean why it was pushed back? Essentially what happened is that the show, which was only able to be produced in the first two years with eight days of main unit shooting and a couple of days of second unit shooting and a considerable amount of overtime, was then reduced to seven days of shooting, no second unit and no overtime. It was horribly misguided and not particularly smart and the shows were incomplete.

When, in December I sat down to go through and edit the first part of the season, so many themes were missing and so many shots were not picked up. We would have scenes that had footage on both sides of the access line, but the shot that actually connected the access lines to make it cut together was lost because the producers didn’t want to go into overtime, and it hurt the show incredibly.

For four months there was a refusal to move off this approach to producing the show and for four months we were crying out to the studio for help to try to get the show on track. We were haemorrhaging money because of bad decisions, and sets were being built at the very last minute, so they cost three times as much as what they should have cost, so it was really kind of a horrible confluence of bad ideas in terms of how to approach producing a season of Hannibal.

But you won the argument eventually?

We did, thankfully!




You’ve talked before about season three completely reinventing Hannibal’s origin story. Can you be specific about what it was in particular you found dissatisfying about the one given in Hannibal Rising?

For me, in Hannibal Rising—it’s a book that I’ve never finished because there was always a point where something rang false about the approach and promise of a character who says, I believe in The Silence Of The Lambs, “Nothing happened to me, [Officer Starling]. I happened”. Then what Hannibal Rising suggests is that it took that statement away and refuted it and said essentially ‘no, actually what happened was Nazis ate my sister, and that’s why I am what I am’. I felt very deeply that what was true to the character of Hannibal Lecter is that nothing happened, he happened. That felt more powerful. That felt more mythological in its origin story as opposed to ‘Nazis ate my sister’.

Did you ever consider just not delving into Hannibal’s origin story? You said before about the Star Wars prequels that seeing a villain as a child can de-fang them?

The origin story that we do in season three is very tricky in that we don’t do flashbacks. We meet people who survived that era and have a tale to tell about that experience. But they don’t tell the complete tale, and neither does Hannibal, so there’s information but there’s not too much information about his early life. Enough to suggest a story happened but not enough to detail anything that we felt would demystify our Hannibal Lecter in this series.

We were very tricky in that in terms of selling an origin story that was not necessarily a story, but a reference. That’s how we walked that very fine line.

And I suppose that’s where Lady Murasaki comes in?

That’s another shift we took. We were originally setting down Lady Murasaki when we were plotting out the third season, what to do and how to approach it. We had crafted what the character needed to do in terms of the story and understood how this character would have reacted to the events in her life, and as we were casting it became clear that a lot of what we were planning to do with the character hinged on a less mature woman. If she were sophisticated and mature as a human being she may not have been party to certain events that happen in the series, so we made the decision—particularly when we learned that Tao Okamoto was interested in the role—that, well, there’s another character in the book who is actually a much, much, much younger character, somebody who was much younger than Hannibal even, when she met him and that is Chiyo, Lady Murasaki’s attendant. So we replaced Murasaki with Chiyo and the plan would be to introduce Murasaki in a fourth season, should that come to pass.




Do you have a clear idea of how you want to end the show overall? You know that ‘drop the microphone’ moment from Hannibal at the end of season two, do you have that for say, three seasons down the line in mind?

We have another ‘drop the mic’ moment at the end of this season. Once again, we approach this show always working under the assumption that every season is our last season. We have an ending to this season that is shocking and striking and sad and earned, and we also have a way to un-paint ourselves out of that corner should there be a fourth season.

Part of what made season two such a satisfying fan experience was seeing seeds sown back in season one – Abigail Hobbs, Miriam Lass – crop up. Were there other seeds sown back then that are being harvested in season three?

Yes, there are a few seeds that crop up in season three. The beauty of season two is that we laid so many of the stones down, that we were able to take a clear path. A lot of seeds that were laid down in season two—the Mason Verger story, where Will Graham and Hannibal’s relationship was left—we get to mine those in an exciting way in the third season, particularly in the first half, which is our Italian half of the season. Gillian Anderson’s character, Bedelia Du Maurier, has a very significant role in that arc. There’s lots in season two that sets up that first chunk, then when we get into the latter half of the season, which is the Red Dragon story, there are still repercussions from the past joining through that second arc.

Am I right in thinking that we’ve already had a glimpse of Francis Dolarhyde’s work? The very first crime scene that Will visits in Aperitif was originally intended to be an early murder of his, wasn’t it? Unless that’s just a mad internet theory I’m spouting!

That was an embellishment that we had designed to come back to. What we found in the telling of the Red Dragon story—because there was so much more information going on in terms of Francis Dolarhyde and Reba McClane and the arcs for our survivors of the Red Dinner—was that there was little room to go back and say ‘oh, this thing happened’.

That was always the original intention and then we found in breaking the story that it became clumsy to try to go back and re-weave something in that started the season, and it became unwieldy so we ended up not weaving that through in the interest in telling a more complicated and richer Francis Dolarhyde story instead.

For which role you’ve bagged the wonderful Richard Armitage, another great UK actor.

Oh! I can’t speak highly enough about the man as a professional and how he has brought this character to life in such a unique way. The tragedy of Francis Dolarhyde in the literature, I find to be so poignant and so romantic—you have this man who is capable of horrible things in that he’s a murderer of families, yet he is eloquent enough to take a blind woman on a date to the zoo where she can’t see the animals, but he has arranged for her to feel the animals—it’s one of the most romantic things I’ve ever read, ever!

To be able to allow the audience to meet that man first and see the tragedy of his situation and then be exposed to the horrors of what he is capable of, and then be able to return again to the story of a tortured man whose mind is eating him from the inside out, takes a very particular actor to navigate and garner sympathy from the audience.




I’m currently looking at episodes with Richard’s work and there is one in particular where both the editor and I were crying in the edit room because he communicated so eloquently the pain of Francis Dolarhyde and the torture of his existence. It’s very effective in its purpose of setting out to confuse the audience. We wanted the audience to be confused, ‘am I looking at a horrible murderer, or am I looking at a man who is in such torment and pain that he can’t control his own actions?’ That was the grey area that I felt would be interesting to explore over six episodes that would separate us from a standard television crime procedural where the villain is the villain and we don’t get access to his or her life as much as we get reasons to loathe or resent them. Our prerogative is really to complicate heroes and villains, there’s a tremendous amount of grey.



Returning to your chief complicated hero/villain then, can we talk about that motorcycle jacket in the season three trailer? Are we about to meet Hannibal the action star?

We wanted to start season three with a ‘pop’ and I knew very early on that season three had to start with Hannibal Lecter in a coal Belstaff motorcycle jacket riding a great Hog through the streets of Paris.

Ha! Did that come to you in a vision?

[Laughs] It was, I’m sure, an amalgam of many movies I had seen of action stars racing through streets. I just wanted to reintroduce the character to the audience in a way that they get to see a completely new perspective of who this man is, from the three-piece suited gentleman cannibal that we’ve experienced in the first two seasons, to a new level of almost James Bond spymanship with him assuming a different identity, being in a different country, moving among people as a predator.

That’s not to say that we get rid of the fancy suits, because he has beautiful suits too.

Oh, I’ve seen the promo pictures, he’s still very chic.

It’s very important that he’s styled as chic as is humanly possible. We wanted to start with a slightly new Hannibal and then ease the audience back into a different kind of gentleman who, at one moment is speeding through Paris on a motorcycle, and at the next is wearing a tuxedo, and the next is wearing a three-piece green pin-stripe suit with a bow-tie… It was important to keep the fashion plates rotating around Mads Mikkelsen, because he just wears them so well.




It’s interesting that you mention James Bond. You once said that Hannibal’s plastic kill-suit was a deliberate Dr. No reference.

Yes!

So this is one in a long line of Bond references in Hannibal?

I am a big fan of James Bond and there have been a couple of references to Bond in Hannibal, not least of which is the Dr. No kill-suit. The idea of this gentleman killer, which is exactly who James Bond is, being impeccably dressed, going to fancy affairs and moving amongst prey is something that felt like it resonated with this arc for Hannibal Lecter, so we embraced a little bit of the Bondian ‘I’m undercover and I’m also deadly’.

What other Bond references can we look out for in season three?

There was Dr. No, then of course in the first episode of season three there are a few Bondian things, a big ballroom dance, for one. They’ll be peppered through, little subtleties such as those, that we used to buttress our Bond fetish!

I was interested to see that Alana has her own plaid tailored suit in season three. Is that a deliberate channelling of Hannibal for her? Can we expect her to become more of a force next season?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Chris Hargadon, our costume designer, and I sat down at the beginning of the season and one of the things that was important to me is that we see Alana in a new light. I felt like in season two that she was plotted in as the girlfriend and the leg of the triangle that connected to both Will and Hannibal, but she didn’t necessarily have her own story. That was something we were very conscious about needing to rectify this season. Part of her new aesthetic is seeing the influence of Hannibal on her life, and dressing her in gorgeous three-piece suits of her own style, giving a reflection of the impact Hannibal Lecter has had on her life and her own psychology. So that’s a very good catch, and exactly what we were trying to do.




I have to ask because it’s such a great idea, how far did you get in discussions with bringing David Bowie in to the cast?

The trick with David Bowie right now is that he is so incredibly busy. He’s got a new musical that he’s plotting, he’s got new albums that he’s plotting, so he’s simply not available right now. We’ve reached out and he knows that we would love to do something the moment he has any room to do something. We just hope our calendars schedule. We’ve had several conversations with his people and the feedback is always that David loves that we’re approaching him and to keep approaching, and hopefully the stars will align. Right now, between his new musical and new batch of songs, he is maintaining radio silence as far as any other projects are concerned, which I applaud because I can’t wait to see the musical and I can’t wait to hear his new music because he continues to be a vibrant and modern voice in song.

So you’d be flexible about which character he could play should he become available in future?

Even if he has a day… What I would love to do is collaborate with him and craft a role that uses his skillset as a comedian, because his comic timing is so good. I would love to write a very dark comedic role for him.

Please do! Keep up the campaign. Now, if you’ll allow me a bit of a conspiracy theory here. Mark Gatiss…

I adore him. I have such a crush on that man.

He regularly Tweets pictures, usually some medieval grotesquery, accompanied by the meme phrase “Today’s mood”. He recently Tweeted William Blake’s The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed In Sun [a plot point in Red Dragon].

Ah!

Coincidence? Or a coded message that you two are finally working together?

Oh, no. I’m on Twitter so sporadically when I’m in the heat of things, and I missed that Tweet. How lovely!

We have Tweeted back and forth in terms of conspiring on doing something together and I do hope that comes to pass because I find him incredibly talented and funny and handsome and I would love to work with him.




Before I go, we can’t not talk about American Gods because it’s top of our list of in-development projects right now. Can you update us on your progress there?

It’s going along nicely. The first two scripts have been written and we have been working with illustrators designing the world, so we’ve got these fantastic illustrations of Jack’s Crocodile Bar, the Bone Orchard and Zorya’s rooftop with all the telescopes looking up at the bear constellation. There are also some new things that are going to be unique to the series and weren’t in the book.

We are going to do a visual presentation to Starz, who are very happy with the two scripts that they received, and then we go from there.

In terms of casting, are you making offers at this stage?

We haven’t made an offer but we’ve made an approach to one actor in particular. It all hinges on the final trigger being pulled by Starz. We have several people lined up that we would love to get in various roles and plan on making approaches.

And when that trigger is pulled, what timescale are you looking at?

As soon as the go-ahead has been given, we’re looking at early 2016 production with airing later in 2016.

When might we expect casting announcements to start arriving?

Neil [Gaiman’s] plan—and Neil’s very internet savvy—what Neil would like to do is cast Laura and Shadow and Wednesday and Mad Sweeney and Bilquis, because Bilquis will be a major character in the show, and the Technical Boy and then drop them all out on-stage at a Comic-Con coming up. That’s his plan. He’s saying ‘I don’t want to make any casting announcements, I want to announce the cast in full when they walk out on stage at a Comic-Con’.

The last time we spoke about casting, it was cheering for you to talk about making sure the cast wasn’t whitewashed in terms of ethnicity…

One of the things I’m most excited about for American Gods is the diversity in the cast because there’s such a wide range of ethnic Gods in the world. Right now, we’re imagining two white roles and everybody else is non-white, so my goal, Michael’s goal, certainly Neil’s goal has been to have a very ethnically diverse cast. That’s important to all of us.

Also now, we can cite Empire and we can cite The Walking Dead as being primarily non-white in their casting, and they’re the two biggest shows in the world right now, so that has to say something. We have to be moving forward with a representation that is accurate to the world.

It has to look like 2015 up there.

It really does, and there’s no excuse with American Gods. There’s absolutely no excuse to cast say, Mr Ibis and Mr Jacquel as… those should be African-origin actors in terms of their heritage.

Finally, whereabouts on your list of priorities right now is bringing Star Trek back to television?

It’s very high up. Unfortunately there’s been no movement and I’m not in those circles, but given half the opportunity I would love to work on a new Star Trek series and the captain would be a non-white female.

Bryan Fuller, thank you very much!

Hannibal Series 3 premieres June 10th exclusively on Sky Living.

Special thanks to Den Of Geek's resident Fannibals, Laura Akers and Gabriel Bergmoser.

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Bryan Fuller interview: Hannibal season 3, Red Dragon, American Gods


As Hannibal season 3 arrives, we chat to showrunner Bryan Fuller about origin stories, Francis Dolarhyde, David Bowie & more…








Read more: http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/bryan-fulle ... z3bWQNXozC

Exclusive ‘Hannibal’ interview: Showrunner Bryan Fuller teases Season 3

Posted May 29, 2015 by Tobias Forrest & filed under Exclusives.

Hannibal 3 Mads Mikkelsen

Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale) is back as serial killer Hannibal Lecter next month for a third season of US thriller Hannibal on Sky Living.

[CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2]

Leaving us with loads to chew on, the friendship between Hannibal and Will (Hugh Dancy) was shattered at the end of Season 2 as Hannibal realised Will had betrayed him and plunged a knife into his stomach. Before that, the shocks had come in quick succession. The assumed-dead Abigail Hobbs (Kacey Rohl) surprised everyone by not only being alive but also hurling Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) out of a second-floor window.

Minutes later though, her throat was slashed and she was left bleeding out in front of Will. Also left for dead was Jack (Laurence Fishburne), who was choking on his own blood and desperately trying to call his dying wife as the credits rolled. As the new season begins, Hannibal is on the run in Europe accompanied by Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson). But what is she to him? His therapist? His victim? His lover? Or his accomplice?



Season 3 begins at 10pm on Wednesday 10 June on Sky Living.

To celebrate the show’s return, CultBox caught up with Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller for a chat about what’s coming up in the new season, replacing Michael Pitt, who might play Clarice Starling and the possibility of a movie…



Season 2 ended in quite brutal fashion with the fates of several characters left hanging. What can you tell us about Season 3?

“Well, I think the big leap forward in season 3 is that we land the show in the very first episode with a bit of a time jump that allows the characters to settle into a new story and if the first season was the romance and the second season was the breakup, the third season is that horrible revisiting of a relationship to put it out of its misery once and for all or re-engage.”



Hannibal betrayed a lot of people, especially Jack and Alana, how do they come back from that? Assuming they survived Season 2 of course!

“It’s interesting that the first seven episodes are such a departure from the first two seasons in that there’s no FBI, there’s no kind of crime procedural investigation, it is a purely character driven story and the survivors of the ‘red’ dinner, each have been changed measurably by that night.
Hannibal 3 Hugh Dancy
“So when we sat down at the beginning of the season, there were a lot of conversations about how has every individual character been changed and how are they moving forward, how can we best illustrate this new transition into a world that is essentially post death? Because to all intents and purposes everybody in that house should have died.”



Do you think Hannibal and Will can ever truly forgive each other after what happened?

“Yes, yes I think there’s an interesting aspect to their relationship that when Will says, ‘I forgive you,’ is the forgiveness that we make in terms of how you forgive a shark for being a shark and how you accept that Hannibal is who he is, has not necessarily once it’s all been revealed that the chrysalis about his identity and how he works and how he views the world.

“So yes, he’s been a grand manipulator, but there’s also been a very strange streak of honesty in all of his dealings with the characters so he hasn’t been a monster of lies, he’s actually been trying to reach out in the clearest, purest version of every character in the piece.”



What are your standout moments from the new season? What can audiences expect this year?

“From the new season? Without giving too much away I think there are quite a few with this cast. We had Gillian Anderson who has crafted this role over two seasons in a supporting capacity and now stepping centre stage to be one of the regulars on the show.
Hannibal 3 Gillian Anderson
“I love what she’s done with the character and how she’s opened this character up in a way where we see this very cool, cold woman hoisted by her own petard in some way and also finding a new life with Hannibal that is very much almost academic because she is always his psychiatrist and we see Gillian, as a performer, actually move into a very comedic role in the series and, laugh-out-loud, in several episodes her reactions alone to some of the things that Hannibal does are some of my favourites in the series that we’ve done.

“There’s also a tremendous amount of emotion that we explore, certainly in the second episode, we really go to the heart of what it is to grieve in this world for Will Graham and how he has to navigate that grief and move forward and achieve what he needs to achieve with his relationship with Hannibal.”

Michael Pitt made a considerable impact as Mason in Season 2. How difficult was it to cast a replacement for the new season?

“Well, you know, it’s very unfortunate that Michael chose not to come back for the third season but the great news is that Joe Anderson was so eager to step into the role, that he’s made it his own and we’ll have as iconic a performance as Michael’s, I believe.

“And one of the fun things about the early conversations with Joe, about the character of Mason Verger when we first sat down to talk, he wasn’t told which character he was being asked to play and I asked him if he had seen the Ridley Scott film and he said ‘absolutely’ and how brilliant Gary Oldman was in that Mason Verger role, that’s who we want you to play post disfiguration and he was so excited, he was like: ‘that’s the guy? That’s the character you want me to play?’

“So it’s very exciting to have someone step into another actor’s shoes and yet be so committed to make the role his own and if anything his style of Mason Verger is more of a homage of what Gary Oldman did in the Ridley Scott film than anything Michael Pitt did in Season 2.”



You’ve assembled quite an impressive guest cast this year with Richard Armitage signing on to play Francis Dolarhyde. What was it about Richard that made you realise he was the Francis you were looking for?

“Richard, in many respects, is the manifestation of how Thomas Harris described Francis Dolarhyde in the novel in terms of a handsome man with a scar that humbled him and there’s a Shakespearean quality to the tragedy of Francis Dolarhyde.
Hannibal 3
“Richard is so beautifully trained as an actor and was able to inhabit the role in such a manner that you forget that he’s a horrible murderer of families and you witness the tragedy of the character and there were many times in the editing bay where both the editor and myself had tears in our eyes because his performance was so heartbreaking and I can’t wait for people to see it.”



I’m really looking forwards to seeing him on screen.

“He’s wonderful in the role. I can’t believe how lucky we were to get him and also how committed he was and, when he shared with me his journals of the character, how much research he was doing and how thoughtful and meticulous he is at crafting characters, it was a joy to see, it was so impressive to witness such a brilliant actor at the height of his game.”



Since its debut in 2013, Hannibal has been a critical if not a ratings success for NBC. What do you think it is about the show that people find so appealing?

“I like to believe that its appeal is that it is different and it feels different and it’s paced different than most television and it has a style to it that is reflective of the style of the title character and I like to think that the show is as sophisticated in its representation of horror as Hannibal Lecter himself.”



How do you think the new summer slot will affect the show?

“I’m not sure if it will have a dramatic effect one way or the other because it’s not like we were burning out the Nielson boxes in the US as it were, so I think it will help us to be clear of all the competition and summer is a slightly more open slot.
Hannibal 3 Lawrence Fishburne
“I think that hopefully more folks will find us and we will have word of mouth from the previous two seasons bringing new eyeballs to the show, but it’s really hard to say how it’s going to affect us. I hope it’s best for the show, I certainly don’t think it could hurt the show.”



If Hannibal wasn’t picked up for a fourth season in 2016 would you consider the possibility of doing a movie or look at other alternatives such as Netflix or Amazon to get the show made?

“Absolutely, I think the way we end the third season is how we’ve ended the first two seasons in that we design a finale that also functions as a series finale and paint ourselves into a corner that is a lot of thought to paint ourselves out of and that’s always been my approach to the show because given my history with the shows I’ve created, I’ve never gotten to a third season before.

“To get to a third season and I don’t want to be caught with my pants down where we end the show and that hasn’t been designed, so every season has been designed to end with the hopes of continuing on and the way we end Season 3 actually sets up a great paradigm for a film because it’s sort of a board-clearing sweep.”

There’s been such a fantastic response to the show in particular towards Hugh and Mads. What do you think it is about their performances that fans love?

“I think their friendship comes through their performance and that was one of the main reasons I wanted to cast Mads after we had cast Hugh was that I knew they were friends and I knew Hugh was very invested in working with Mads again and their camaraderie and their brotherhood offscreen so interestingly informs their chemistry onscreen.
Hannibal
“That was exactly what I wanted to capture that these two men genuinely like each other onscreen and off and the complexities of the characters roles that only serve to further deepen that relationship, so I think what fans respond to is that friendship.”



You can see how well they react to each other onscreen.

“They’re both pros. They’re absolute professionals and enjoy their craft and enjoy each other and it’s wonderful to see and I think that that translates.”



You’ve spoken before of the ongoing rights issue with MGM. If you managed to come to an agreement who would be your ideal Clarice and what backup plans are in place for when the show reaches Silence of the Lambs territory?

“Well, you know I love Ellen Page, I think she’s a brilliant actor and I think she would be so engaging to step into that role, but I’m also excited about the idea of casting someone non-white as Clarice Starling particularly as her background in the South as being from a small town we have a different level.

“If she were black or if she were Latino or Asian and it would inform the role in a different way and I think one of the things that is great about colourblind casting is that there are so many amazing non-white actors out there but the flaw in colourblind casting is occasionally is ignoring an actor’s race, because I think that can inform the character in such a different way because a young black woman’s experience is going to be different than a young white woman’s experience is going to be different than a young Latino woman’s experience and a young Asian woman’s experience.

“Ethnicity and race do change experiences and perspectives and that’s something to be celebrated and taken advantage of as opposed to ignored.”



Finally, how would you convince new viewers to watch the show?

“I think that the appeal of the show is it’s psychological thriller and I think that audiences may have varying degrees of baggage with the Hannibal franchise and I would recommend that they chuck their baggage and enjoy the show for what it is because as we step into the third season it becomes something wholly different than what we’ve been doing in the first two years and departs from any of the films.

“Yet it’s familiar with the films because we do engage in some of the same storylines, but we’re approaching them from different perspectives and changing characters around so that something that may have happened in the books or the previous movies to one character is happening to a different character with an entirely new perspective.”



Bryan, thank you very much and good luck with the new season!

“Thank you so much and thank you for supporting the show.”