The man with the dragon tattoo
IT isn’t often you hear a man confessing to being squeamish. But that is what Richard Armitage admitted to when asked if he has watched the TV series Hannibal.
“I remember being terrified with The Silence Of The Lambs,” he said with a laugh in a telephone interview. The British actor is taking our call from Los Angeles to talk about his latest role – a serial killer on Hannibal.
The 43- year- old plays Francis Dolarhyde ( aka The Tooth Fairy, aka The Red Dragon) in a six- episode story arc. Just to jog your memory, this character first appeared in Thomas Harris’ 1981 novel Red Dragon, which describes him as someone who is uncomfortable in his own skin due to his cleft lip and palate.
( It is also in this novel that Dr Hannibal Lecter – a man with a penchant for killing people as a source of food and on whom the series is based on – and FBI profiler Will Graham are introduced. Harris’ other book The Silence Of The Lambs was made into a feature film starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. The 1991 film won five Oscars including Best Picture.)
Hannibal’s audience got their first glimpse of Dolarhyde in last week’s episode titled The Great Red Dragon. The intense episode showed Dolarhyde getting a dragon tattoo on his back in his desire to transform into something else. He then hears voices and goes on a killing spree during full moon.
According to Armitage, he did finally watch all the Hannibal episodes back- toback once he accepted the role, albeit with a bit of self- censoring.
He explained: “There were moments when I had to turn my sights away. I am a sensitive person by design. Now, that is the whole point of being actor, to feel things. But there are certain things, certain images, that I don’t want in my head. Once they play into your mind I find it very difficult to get rid of them. I still have images from films that I have seen in the past that I wish I have never looked at.”
Armitage’s sensitivity also extends to how violence is depicted on screen. No doubt, Hannibal has never shied away from shocking the audience with its graphic images – usually horrifyingly beautiful. If the series had wanted to show Dolarhyde committing the crimes in gory details, Armitage might not have said yes to the role as it’s not something he is comfortable doing.
“When you are asked to portray violence, it has to be faithful to what it is depicting. If we trivialise it, we undersell it; if we glamourise it, we are in dangerous territory,” Armitage said.
Luckily, Hannibal’s showrunner Bryan Fuller was more interested in exploring Dolarhyde’s transformation due to his past and present experiences rather than the gore. It was an idea that more than intrigued Armitage.
“Dolarhyde is somebody who has experienced trauma in his childhood and damage from such an early age. Not only in his body, from the cleft palate, but in his mind – from being abandoned by his mother and being abused by his step siblings. So there is a deformity in him that is making him act in this way.
“Because of that, he has my empathy and to some extent my sympathy. It’s not that I condone what he does, because what he does is so appalling, but as a person who becomes a monster that is something I find fascinating to explore.”
While Armitage turned to Harris’ book for the blueprint of his portrayal of Dolarhyde, he agreed that some elements needed to be changed in order for the character to exist in the Hannibal universe. ( In the book, Dolarhyde never meets either Hannibal or Will. However, in the series he is stuck between these two men, making it a lethal triangle.)
“Will Graham is trying to prevent another murder from happening and in a way save Dolarhyde. And Hannibal is pushing him towards the edge – he wants him to become the Red Dragon. So Hannibal cares less about these violent crimes and more about what Dolarhyde is becoming.”
The 1.89m method actor, who was last seen in The Hobbit trilogy as Thorin Oakenshield, has said in previous interviews that he doesn’t like going out of character during filming as he fears he might not be able to pick it up again. But at the same time, Armitage shared that staying in character for Hannibal was not possible either. “It is quite a frightening thing when you accept the thing Dolarhyde does.”
So Armitage optioned instead to continue studying Dolarhyde by re- reading the novel as well as books on psychopathy to stay close to him. “... As a character he is just fascinating. If an audience can emphatise with him, then it’s a kind of a strange achievement.”