DR. FREDERICK CHILTON

ANTHONY HEALD, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

When director Jonathan Demme was casting The Silence Of The Lambs, he offered Anthony Heald any role he wanted. “I said Chilton, but they originally wanted someone older,” he tells Buff. Eventually, Demme came round to the idea of Heald playing against type. “Until then, I’d always played sympathetic roles and I thought it would be interesting to have an unsympathetic character played by a sympathetic actor. I call this type ‘a sleazeball in a suit’.”

Heald’s pompous, petty Dr. Chilton is memorable as someone who delights in wielding what little power he has through tormenting his “prize asset”, removing Hannibal Lecter’s privileges and subjecting him to relentlessly loud evangelical television. Both characters are doctors but far from equals. Chilton is desperate for the respect and attention bestowed upon Lector and sees him as his chance to achieve fame. “He’s a mess of contradictions. You wonder if his doctorate is in psychology or actually business studies, because he doesn’t come across as a caregiver,” continues Heald.

Chilton’s attempts at charming Clarice Starling still get a particularly visceral reaction from new audiences in the many ‘reaction’ videos available online. Heald chuckles. “The thing about playing sleazeballs is that that’s not their image. They think what they’re doing is absolutely right. This holds true whether you’re playing Chilton or Iago or Shylock. No villain sees themselves as the villain.”

Silence originally ended with Chilton tied, at the mercy of a knife-wielding Lecter, but this was deemed too on the nose and changed, giving Hannibal the cannibal a truly iconic line in the process. “I’m having an old friend for dinner…”