Hannibal: NBC Wanted John Cusack or Hugh Grant Over Mads Mikkelsen

Imagine, if you will, Hugh Dancy’s Will Graham in all his compelling glory having his half-terrifying, half-sensual tête-à-tête with Hannibal Lecter in the NBC series Hannibal, except instead of the dashing Mads Mikkelsen on the other end of the table, you have John Cusack. In an alternate timeline, that’s the show that viewers got – and it’s a very different Hannibal for a number of reasons.

Collider’s own Steve Weintraub recently spoke with Dancy and Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller for an extended, exclusive interview, and in discussing the inspired casting of Mikkelsen as Lecter, Fuller revealed the months-long fight he had with NBC over who would tackle the titular role. Indeed, the network originally envisioned someone more “American” in the part:

“There was a casting kerfuffle on who to cast for Hannibal Lecter, and there was a difference of opinion on what a traditional television network would want as a leading man and what we would want as an actor playing Hannibal Lecter to personify playing that character. I think the network wanted somebody that was much more poppy, much more mainstream, much more American I think in some ways. That was just them thinking about, ‘Okay how do we get the biggest audience for our television show? We have to cast John Cusack as Hannibal Lecter and everybody will tune in because won’t that be surprising?’ I was like, ‘Well go ahead, make an offer.’”

Fuller wanted Mikkelsen from the get-go, but the network was less sure:

“There was some resistance to Mads Mikkelsen because he was European, because he was somebody who you could look at and go, ‘Yeah I buy that he eats people’. We were dealing with a very American network that wanted a very American actor to sell to American audiences, and all the creatives on the show wanted somebody who was the best person for the role.”

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