Clarice Starling: Who She Is, Who Plays Her and What Happens to Her

Clarice Starling is the young FBI trainee who carries the story of Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the killer Buffalo Bill. In The Silence of the Lambs (1991), directed by Jonathan Demme, senior agent Jack Crawford pulls her from her studies and sends her to interview Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist jailed for murder and cannibalism. Crawford is hunting a serial killer who skins his female victims, and Lecter takes an interest in her once she is in front of his cell.

Two actresses have played her on the big screen. Jodie Foster is billed first in The Silence of the Lambs, with Anthony Hopkins as Lecter in the second billing slot, and the credit reads simply Clarice Starling. Julianne Moore is billed second in Hannibal (2001), directed by Ridley Scott, where she is credited as Clarice M. Starling and Hopkins returns as Lecter.

She is absent from the other three films. Manhunter (1986), directed by Michael Mann, features Brian Cox as Lecktor and is an earlier adaptation of the story that became Red Dragon, so it predates her arrival on screen. Red Dragon (2002) and Hannibal Rising (2007) are prequels to her story, so you will not find her in either, although Red Dragon closes with a mention of a young FBI trainee. She also has a television life in the CBS series Clarice, which is TV rather than a film, and the hannibal tv series page covers the small screen. If you are new to the saga, the hannibal movies in order guide shows where her two films sit, and manhunter 1986 has its own page.

Lecter takes an interest in Clarice because she offers him something his cell never does, which is a person to study. In The Silence of the Lambs he gives her clues, but only in exchange for personal details about her own past, so every session is a trade of confessions for case information. He does not hunt her, and in the final phone call he makes that plain. No studio or trade source gives a figure for the age gap between the two.

Jack Crawford, played by Scott Glenn in 1991, is the senior agent who sends her to Lecter and sets the investigation in motion. Kasi Lemmons plays Ardelia Mapp, Frankie Faison plays Barney, and Anthony Heald plays Dr. Frederick Chilton, the man Lecter follows at the end. Brooke Smith plays Catherine Martin, the victim whose rescue gives Clarice's work its purpose.

The killer in her first film is Jame Gumb, played by Ted Levine and known as Buffalo Bill, and the page on buffalo bill silence of the lambs covers him. In 2001, Ray Liotta plays Paul Krendler, her corrupt FBI superior, and Gary Oldman plays Mason Verger. You can read more on jack crawford silence of the lambs, mason verger and hannibal lecter.

In my opinion, the best Clarice Starling scene is the basement, and it works because the film takes away the one thing the audience relies on, which is sight. Gumb cuts the lights and stalks her with night vision goggles, so the viewer sees only what the killer sees, and Clarice sees nothing. He gives away his position, and she shoots and kills him. As a piece of creature design, the monster here is a man in a house with a pit, and the rules are simple enough that the fear lands every time.

Second, I would pick her first interview with Lecter, where the trade is established: clues for stories. It could be argued that this is the better scene for character, since the lambs memory is the price she pays and the film never lets her forget it. Third is the moth, when she realizes the house she is standing in is Gumb's. It is a small clue, delivered quietly, and it turns a routine question into the most dangerous moment of her career.

From Hannibal (2001), the pick is the dinner scene, though for horror rather than character. Starling is under Lecter's influence while Krendler is served at the table, and she turns on Lecter only afterward. In my view it is the weaker of the two films for her, because she spends much of it reacting to Verger and Lecter rather than leading the hunt. That being said, Julianne Moore gives the sidelined agent a clipped, tired edge that suits a woman blamed for a raid gone wrong.