Silence of the Lambs stars on bringing Clarice and Lecter to stage

Thomas Harris’s chilling psychological thriller The Silence of the Lambs is making the leap from page and screen to the stage in a major new production heading to Wales next year.

John Partridge will take on one of popular culture’s most infamous villains, Hannibal Lecter, opposite Coronation Street star Mollie Gallagher as FBI trainee Clarice Starling, as the production tours the UK and Ireland following its world premiere at Leicester’s Curve theatre.

For Gallagher, the production marks her professional stage debut, while Partridge faces the rather different challenge of making a character indelibly associated with Anthony Hopkins his own.

Here, the leading pair speak about stepping into the iconic roles, the relationship at the heart of the story, and why a thriller first published almost four decades ago still feels relevant today.

What’s your history with The Silence of the Lambs?

Mollie Gallagher: I’ve always loved the film. It’s funny, my family actually have a joke going with it. The meme of Anthony Hopkins, where you first see Lecter, and he stands up, we tease my dad that he looks like him! And I always used to imagine that when my mum was younger, she looked like Jodie Foster. Now I actually get to be Clarice.

What did you think when you heard The Silence of the Lambs was coming to the stage?

John Partridge: When I first heard about it being put on, I thought, “Ooh, that would be fantastic!” Ahead of my audition, they very kindly sent me the script and told me to pick two scenes, so I said to my good friend [actress] Tamzin Outhwaite, “I need you to read with me”, and when she found out what it was, she said, “Oh my god!” I feel very lucky this has come my way.

How did you approach making such iconic characters your own?

Gallagher: [Clarice] is such an iconic heroine – everyone loves her. You can’t get much cooler than Clarice. She’s a badass. Physically, it’s been a real transformation for me. The way I hold myself is completely different, and my voice too. I speak quite high, from my head voice, whereas Clarice speaks from a lower place to convey strength. She has to adapt to be taken seriously.

I never would have imagined myself playing an FBI agent. I’m quite airy, whereas Clarice is the complete opposite – she’s grounded at all times. I’m always moving around, and she’s very present, in the moment. She’s so intelligent. She’s got a psychology degree, she’s studying criminal behaviour, and she’s much smarter than I am. I very much have an ADHD brain – my mouth is trying to keep up with it – whereas Clarice is so articulate. I love being her. Weirdly, she makes me feel stronger and more confident. Now, in any situation in life, I can just think “What would Clarice do?”.

Partridge: I did wonder, “How do you do something that is so ingrained in pop culture?” I’m a child of the 70s, so when the film came out in 1991, I was one of those core Silence viewers. It lives in our zeitgeist. Then I read about Anthony Hopkins choosing three quite surprising inspirations for Lecter: Truman Capote, Katharine Hepburn, and the computer HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

That really gave me the freedom to do my own version of that process. My three are Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, and John Malkovich. Lecter is intelligent, mocking and acerbic, but also serious and malevolent. Now, I try to forget any other version of Lecter and just put myself firmly in that cell.

The very helpful thing is that most people know already who Hannibal Lecter is – and if you don’t, you can guess from me being in a glass box for the majority of the play that I must be an extremely terrible man! When I was first placed in the box, I thought, “Oh my goodness, how do I push my performance beyond it?” Then I realised that rather than trying to push, I have to pull the audience into the box. It also helped me get into Lecter’s headspace: how it feels for a man who has so much grace, who loves music and art, to be confined like that.

Physically, Lecter is very still. Lots of the roles I’m known for are quite gregarious: I’ve played a lot of larger-than-life characters. Lecter is larger-than-life, but it’s very, very different. If you’re lucky enough to be in this business for a long time – I’m 55 now, I went into Cats when I was 16 – parts like this come along where you can roll up everything you’ve done, and colour with all the crayons in your colouring box.

That’s what I’m able to do here: pull out all of my best bits and put them in this character. I can use my dance background, my physicality, in a new way to inhabit Lecter, while hopefully using the actor I am now, with all my experience, to bring him to life.

What has taking on these roles meant to you personally?

Gallagher: I’m definitely an underdog, and Clarice is a true underdog. She’s from West Virginia, she didn’t come from money, she’s a woman in a man’s world. Just like Clarice, most women have to fight every day to make themselves heard. I’m from a working-class background like hers.

I feel like I have to prove myself every day – coming from my background and also being northern. When I’m speaking to someone, I feel I have to articulate more to make them listen to me – basically speak a bit more ‘proper’. I’m very passionate about working-class actors in this industry. That’s why Corrie’s so amazing – it gives working-class actors a platform.

Partridge: I think these roles often come along when you least expect them. That’s definitely true for me. I recently emigrated to Canada, and a sure way to get a job as an actor is to move 3,000 miles away! But weirdly, it’s helped prepare me for this part. I feel like I’ve moved my life into a very different direction personally, and now I’ve got a very different opportunity professionally too.

What are you most excited about bringing to the stage?

Gallagher: I’m definitely diving in at the deep end, but I’m loving rehearsals so much. I can’t wait to do this with an audience. I know it’ll be scary, Clarice is a big part, but I’m hoping it’ll be really exciting too. Getting to originate this role on stage as well, it literally could not be better.

Partridge: I was slightly panicking about the fava beans and chianti line, because how do you top that iconic version, but it’s not in our play, thankfully! Already, though, if I had a pound for every person who’s come up to me and done that line, I’d be a rich man! But there are plenty of other iconic set-pieces that people will recognise in our show.

I’m most excited about doing the part where Lecter is in the cell and he attacks the guards. I shouldn’t say I’m looking forward to ripping people’s faces off, but you know what I mean! I love all the stunts, getting stuck into those shocking moments of sudden, dynamic physicality. Our production is very visual and striking.

Why do you think The Silence of the Lambs still resonates with audiences today?

Gallagher: I am a massive horror and thriller fan. When I was younger, when someone asked me what I would love to act in, I always said “horror, horror, horror!”. So when this came along, it was a dream come true. I’m a huge Mia Goth fan, I love the Pearl and MaXXXine films. We’re getting so many amazing new horror films now, like Obsession – it’s really taken off. Plus, everybody loves true crime. It’s perfect timing for Silence to come to the theatre. If I weren’t in this play, I’d be queuing up to see it.

Partridge: There’s so much social commentary in this. It’s set in the 80s, when women were viewed very differently – or perhaps not, I’m actually not so sure half the time. If you look at American culture then and now, with Trump in power, in some ways, we’ve regressed. Our attitudes to lots of things, be it same-sex marriage, gay and trans rights, the rise of toxic masculinity, we’re actually not that far from the 1980s. As a gay man, I see my hard-earned freedoms rolled back every day.

We were talking in rehearsal about the attitudes of men and police officers at the time, the rampant misogyny, but look at where we are now with the likes of Andrew Tate. Or look at the gender pay gap, the glass ceiling that’s still there. It’s pretty sobering seeing where we’ve progressed and where we have so much more work to do. Weirdly, Lecter is a psychopath but not a misogynist. He treats Clarice seriously.

The one big change we’ve made in our production is with the Buffalo Bill [serial killer] character, who in the original believes himself to be transsexual and is seeking gender reassignment surgery. We do not need to be villainising our trans brothers and sisters in that way, and our story is much stronger for the changes we’ve made.

It feels like thrillers are really taking off in the theatre right now, with shows like Paranormal Activity and Single White Female. There’s a real appetite for them. Silence is the godfather of them all – the holy grail of psychological thrillers. There’s nothing like it.

What makes the relationship between Lecter and Clarice work on stage?

Partridge: It’s inherently theatrical. It’s like a dance: I invite her to dance with me. I love Mollie – she’s a good northern lass. We’ve got similar backgrounds, and we’re both instinctual actors. I didn’t go to drama school, and this is her first piece of theatre. I think that’s what makes our relationship on stage really fresh. It’s a very different dynamic from Anthony and Jodie [Foster]. We’ve also got a natural rapport. We’ve developed this tight tennis match between us, and hopefully, audiences will love seeing us try to score points off each other every night.

Gina [Gionfriddo] has written a brilliant script. She’s managed to weave her words in with Thomas Harris so seamlessly – it as if Buffalo Bill has stitched it together himself! That gives us so much to play with. It’s a genuinely gripping thriller – you need to know what’s coming next. We use all these theatrical tricks to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Gallagher: [Clarice’s] conversations with Hannibal are so unique because she doesn’t usually open up about her past and her trauma. Not many people know about it. But she’s stuck in this quid pro quo with him. The scene where she talks to him about her father’s death is so dynamic; you get to show every emotion in that one scene. It’s such an iconic moment – I just know the audience will be waiting for their first meeting.

Clarice is at her most vulnerable with Hannibal Lecter: he’s this famous guy, he can see through her, and no matter how powerful, smart and strong you are, that is really scary. I love playing her vulnerable side while also showing her strength. This sort of unusual friendship develops with Hannibal, and by the end, she’s almost sad that her friend is gone and her therapist is gone. She’s wondering, “Who am I now, who do I share these thoughts with?”.

The writing is so brilliant, it just flows, and even from the readthrough me and Johnny could look at each other, and we were locked in. We’ve got a similar vibe and similar ideas about who these two people are and how their relationship develops. They’re both super intelligent, so they’re racing to get ahead of each other or catch the other one off guard.

Johnny is amazing – I couldn’t ask for anyone better to do this with. He is the loveliest man, and then he summons this darkness. Sometimes we’ll be chatting, and he’ll do this look, and I’ll be like “Oh no, Hannibal’s here!”.

What are you looking forward to about taking the production on tour?

Partridge: I’m a Manchester boy, so I always love going home to the Lowry. I’ve got Scottish heritage too, my dad’s from Glasgow, and my mum’s from Dublin, so I always like to go back to the motherland and the fatherland. With this tour, I get to do Manchester, Scotland and Ireland, so that makes me a very happy Hannibal.

Gallagher: I love exploring, and this is a brilliant way to get to see all these great venues around the UK. It’ll be amazing as an actor to get to say I’ve performed in those places. My local theatre is the Lowry, so it’ll be really nice to do it there, in a place that feels like home – though also a lot of pressure as all my friends from Corrie will hopefully see it! Mind you, I look so different in costume that they might not even recognise me. This is an experience I’ve never had before, and it’s just been brilliant.

The Silence of the Lambs comes to Swansea Grand Theatre from 15 to 20 February 2027. More information and tickets are available here. 

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