What was it about Gaspard Ulliel that made you cast him as Hannibal?
Peter Webber: I think French people might associate him with it more than English people because over here we haven’t had a chance to see him in very much. Maybe the thing he’s most famous for in this country is A Very Long Engagement. But I saw a French film from a French director called André Téchiné called Les Egares, which I think had a very small release over here under the title Strayed. If you see that I think you can begin to see the glimmer of Hannibal Lecter in Gaspard’s eyes. It was, presumably, a long search for the right actor, was it? Peter Webber: We looked far and wide because we had a great team working on this film. If we didn’t have the right guy in the middle we might as well have packed up and gone home. I must have seen literally hundreds of actors. We looked at some very famous American actors. I was worried not that they couldn’t do it, but they would bring some baggage to the role. So, I wanted someone who was a bit more of a blank slate. Gaspard is very well k
