Hannibal Trivia | 40 facts about the terrific series

Hannibal is a horror series aired on NBC, which gained popularity, and many positive reviews.

Let’s find out more about it!

1. Hannibal is an American psychological horror-thriller television series.
2. It was developed by Bryan Fuller for NBC.
3. The series is based on characters and elements appearing in Thomas Harris’ novels Red Dragon (1981), Hannibal (1999), and Hannibal Rising (2006).
4. It focuses on the relationship between FBI special investigator Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), a forensic psychiatrist destined to become Graham’s most cunning enemy and, at the same time, the only person who can understand him.
5. The series received a 13-episode order for its first season.
6. David Slade executive produced and directed the first episode.
7. The series premiered on NBC on April 4, 2013.
8. On May 9, 2014, NBC renewed Hannibal for a third season/
9. It premiered on June 4, 2015.
10. On June 22, 2015, NBC canceled Hannibal after three seasons because of low viewership.
11. The series finale aired in Canada on City, on August 27, 2015, and aired two days later in the U.S. on NBC.
12. The series received critical acclaim, with the performances of the lead actors and the visual style of the show being singled out for praise.
13. The first two seasons each won the Saturn Awards for Best Network Television Series.
14. Also, both Mikkelsen and Dancy won Best Actor, with Laurence Fishburne winning Best Supporting Actor for season two.
15. The third and final season won the inaugural Best Action-Thriller Television Series.
16. At the same time guest star Richard Armitage won Best Supporting Actor.
17. The show has garnered a cult following and is considered by critics and audiences as one of the best series of the horror genre.
18. It is also considered one of the greatest TV series of all time.
19. Laurence Fishburne, who plays Jack Crawford, and Gina Torres, who plays Crawford’s wife Bella, were married to each other in real life. They have since separated.
20. Mads Mikkelsen did all of his own cooking on screen, including the egg trick. He was trained by the show’s food stylist, Janice Poon.
21. Hugh Dancy actually recommended Mads Mikkelsen for the role of Hannibal Lecter, as the two actors had become friends during filming ofKing Arthur (2004).
22. David Tennant auditioned for the lead role of Hannibal (2013). Producer Bryan Fuller was so impressed with his audition, he told a magazine that even though he didn’t get the role, he wanted to write Tennant a a guest role as a deranged serial killer
23. Hugh Dancy (Will Graham) screen tested for the role of Hannibal in Hannibal: The Beginning (2007).
24. This series borrows character and stories quite liberally from Thomas Harris’ novels Red Dragon, Hannibal, and Hannibal rising, but, surprisingly, not from The Silence of the Lambs, even though it was from that film that most people became familiar with Hannibal Lecter.
25. This is because that film was the only one in the series not produced by Dino De Laurentiis, and thus the producers of this series do not have the rights to it. Whether or not they have, or intend to use, the rights to Clarice Starling is unknown at this point.
26. The role of Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier was originally written as a much older woman, with Angela Lansbury in mind. When Lansbury could not accept the role due to conflicts with the Australian production of “Driving Miss Daisy,” the role was rewritten for a younger actress, and Gillian Anderson was cast.
27. Bryan Fuller said that the relationship between Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and Will (Hugh Dancy) isn’t just friendship, but more than that. He even went that far to confirm the common pairing “Hannigram”.
28. Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and Will (Hugh Dancy) sometimes discuss Hannibal’s use of a method for mentally storing information called a “memory palace.”
29. This is not an invention of either the show’s writers or of Thomas Harris, who mentions Lecter using a memory palace in his books about the killer. Rather, it is a method of aiding memory that dates back to ancient Rome. One of history’s most famous real-life practitioners was the sixteenth-century Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, who introduced the method to China. See also the trivia section for Sherlock.
30. Dr. Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas) is actually Dr. Alan Bloom in the books.
31. The colour Red is in almost, if not all, scenes of the show. Sometimes extremely obvious, other times subtle and may be either darker or lighter in tone.
32. The building shown as Castle Lecter in Lithuania during season three, is in fact in Belgium. Chateau de Noisy, originally named Chateau Miranda, was completed in 1866.
33. One of the Chesapeake Ripper’s victims is sliced into vertical sections and put on display between sheets of glass. This was mostly likely inspired by British visual artist Damien Hirst, whose 1996 work, “Some Comfort Gained from the Acceptance of the Inherent Lies in Everything,” did this with an actual cow.
34. Laurence Fishburne uses a prop soul patch for the duration of the series as he couldn’t grow his own.
35. Freddie Lounds (Lara Jean Chorostecki) was written as an unattractive, shabbily-dressed, middle-aged male tabloid-print journalist in the original novel (and the previous film adaptations). The TV series changed the role to Fredricka “Freddie” Lounds, a young, beautiful, fashionable, female internet blogger.
36. Bryan Fuller considered Lee Pace, who was the lead in Fuller’s Pushing Daisies (2007), for the part of Will Graham.
37. The name of the character played by Ellen Muth in this series, Georgia Madchen, is a reference to the character that Muth played in one of Bryan Fuller’s previous series, Dead Like Me (2003): Georgia Lass. The German word “Mädchen” means “girl” or “lass.” Fuller also reused the last name “Lass” for Anna Chlumsky’s character, Miriam Lass.
38. Cynthia Nixon’s character, Kade Prurnell, is an anagram of Paul Krendler. Krendler is the male character from the Lecter books on whom her character is based (played by Ray Liotta in Hannibal (2001).
39. Lecter also liked using anagrams throughout the books and films.I
40. The episodes in season 2 are each titled after Japanese appetizers/courses.