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 So begins the third season of NBC's "Hannibal" on Thursday,
Bryan Fuller's stylized origin story of one of pop culture's
most notable fictional cannibals, played by Danish actor Mads
Mikkelsen.
Hannibal is hiding in the open with a new name in Florence with
his former psychiatrist Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson),
after an explosive Season Two finale that saw him attack his
confidante Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and seemingly leave him for
dead.
"We had been telling the story of Hannibal Lecter, foreigner in
America, so far, and now we transition the story," Fuller said.
"He's returning to more familiar settings to lick his wounds. It
allows us to explore the emotional bandwidth of his character
and see him pining for his friend Will."
Fuller's "Hannibal," which premiered in 2013, explores the
origins of author Thomas Harris' "Silence of the Lambs"
character Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and
culinary connoisseur with a secret taste for human flesh.
The NBC show incorporates a crime procedural with an emotional
exploration into the mind of a calculated, but not necessarily
cold-blooded killer.
When discussing Hannibal with Mikkelsen, Fuller said he
envisioned the cultured cannibal as "mysterious and very
attractive."
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"I see him as Lucifer, a fallen angel, he's magnetic," Fuller said.
"The character in literature is a meaner human being and capable of
great cruelty, but I like how Mads plays him - he has a
preternatural quality to him."
"Hannibal" has struggled in network ratings, but Fuller said he
feels buoyed by NBC's decision to push it from the spring season
into June, saying he hopes "we will have less competition."
The show's deaths are bloody and creative, elevating terrifying
mutilations into artistic beauty - one of Fuller's favorites was
"cello man" in Season Two, a body carved into a cello with sounds
produced from the vocal cords.
Fuller said the show's deaths were a "thematic umbrella" to tell the
story of Hannibal and Will, the psychologically disturbed criminal
profiler.
"As a gay man, I'm fascinated with heterosexual relationships
between straight men," Fuller said, adding that he wanted to steer
away from buddy comedy "bromances" and instead focus on two men "who
have deep love and respect for each other."
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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