Gay geek, pop culture loving heads are about to explode.
The new series ‘Hannibal’ – currently in production, and based on the Thomas Harris novels – was already pretty LGBT, admittedly: developed by Bryan Fuller (Star Trek, Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies) and with recurring roles for Scott Thompson (Kids in the Hall) and Tony nominee Raúl Esparza (Leap of Faith, Company – in which he was dead sexy).
Gay Broadway nerds will also drool over the casting of Ellen Greene, aka Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors. The talented cast is led by Hugh Dancy as Special Agent Will Graham and Mads Mikkelson (Casino Royale) as Hannibal Lecter. Throw in a recurring role for Laurence Fishburne, and how could ‘Hannibal’ get any better?
Gillian Anderson, that’s how. The iconic actor of X-Files fame was recently cast in a recurring role as Lecter’s psychotherapist Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier – and how fantastic is that for a character name?
While Anderson doesn’t identify as LGBT, she did reveal having had lesbian relationships in a famous interview earlier this year with Out … even if she still likes boys (and there’s nothing wrong with that).
Filming for ‘Hannibal’ is being done in Toronto. The 13-episode first series – picked up without a pilot on the strength of Fuller’s script – is set to air mid-season next year on NBC.
Much of this has been written before — how she dyed her hair purple, how she glued the school gates shut on graduation night, the drugs and alcohol — but her lesbian romance is something new. Understandably, she is wary of making a big deal of it, precisely because it is a big deal for so many people. “If I had thought I was 100% gay, would it have been a different experience for me?” she wonders. “Would it have been a bigger deal if shame had been attached to it and all those things that become huge life-altering issues for youngsters in that situation? It’s possible that my attitude around it came, on some level, from knowing that I still liked boys.”