Lara Jean Chorostecki talks Hannibal
By Anne Brodie Apr 9, 2013, 12:14 GMT
Lecter is just beginning to formulate his unusual tastes, Dancy is haunted by murder and Lounds is well matched against them in the TV series Hannibal. Based on the crime thrillers by Thomas Harris including the phenomenally successful The Silence of the Lambs, the series focuses on Hannibal’s early years before he was caught for extremely disturbing crimes.
Lara Jean Chorostecki plays Lounds, the role originated by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and she does it with relish. Known as Guinevere’s cousin Bridget in the miniseries Camelot and as Sybil O’Brien the series Copper, she also stars in the features Please Kill Mr. Know it All opening this month and Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral.
The award winning classically trained Canadian actress acknowledges that she nabbed an especially juicy role as Lounds. Chorostecki makes her series debut this week in an episode that may put viewers off mushrooms for a long time.
M&C: We meet your character Freddie Lounds and she is naked at the computer, what does that tell is that you wanted to get across?
Chorostecki: I thought it was a great way that Brian Fuller introduced her because it tells you right away that this girl’s fearless. She doesn’t care a stitch what anyone else thinks unless she thinks it’s going to interfere with her doing her job. It’s a sociopathic quality; it’s pretty great for an actor.
M&C: She’s a good match for Hannibal and Will who are also “outliers”.
Chorostecki: The whole idea we are exploring this season is the idea of identifying those qualities that exist in all of us, sometimes more prominently and outwardly in Freddie than some others.
Right now Hannibal who is very subtle and Mads does such a brilliant job of displaying that subtlety with almost that sly wink to the camera but you never see the wink but you know it’s there. He’s so brilliant in taking this character and making it his own.
M&C: One of the outfits Freddie wears to meet Hannibal is rather shocking. Her tights look blood spattered.
Chorostecki: Our costume designer would be very pleased with that. It was a red lace tight and I am head to toe in red in that scene, right form my hair to my legs. Her outfits have been such a riot and the costumes had a riot going out and finding Freddie outfits because she can pull things off because she is so unabashedly unashamed and doesn’t care what people think.
She also can wear anything she wants and say “This is who I am”. People just have to deal with it.
M&C: She’s such a great character the kind you don’t often see except on cable TV, bold and cutting edge, radical.
Chorostecki: This type of female, specifically female and Brian switched her to female from the male versions in the books and films, really speaks to what’s happen in our culture right now to see a female who is a sociopath and unapologetic is wonderful, and its new territory that’s exciting to see on TV and to play. She’s nothing like me; I really hope she’s nothing like me.
M&C: So where are you getting what makes her you and vice versa?
Chorostecki: You have to kind of reach into the aspects of our psyche we find fascinating that draws us to these serial killers. I love animals and I’m down to earth and love camping and hiking and I’m really Canadian so in that sense it was far to reach but so much fun to tap into. That fearlessness and playing opposite Mads and Hugh was really a lot of fun to do.
M&C: Was the mushroom set the worst thing you’ve ever seen?
Chorostecki: I actually have a fear of things growing on things! It stems form when I was a child and I had warts on my fingers as a child for a couple of years. Fortunately they fell off and never came back.
But from that childhood affliction that is so embarrassing and awful I have such a fear of growths on trees and ... ewww. It’s just a problem to me. I actually had to run away from the mushroom people when they were on set because they were walking around in their prosthetics.
M&C: Are you kidding me? They wore mushroom suits?
Chorostecki: Yeah. There was one a live person underneath it all. Oooh. But it’s an amazing thing. It’s a testament to the team on the series. It looks 100% realistic. Everything on this show was stunning. Even when I read the script I went “Oh, I’ll be able to handle it!” No. No. No. I ran away from one of the people and left the field very quickly.
M&C: Have you run across anyone who has not seen the films or read Thomas Harris’ books?
Chorostecki: No, some people have not read the books, but everybody knows. And we’re counting on the fact that everybody knows because there is that suspense where no one else known Hannibal is a serial killer and eating people but everybody watching it does.
M&C: You’re just waiting for the shoe to drop. When???
Chorostecki: Oh, you’ll have to wait and see. Brian has quite an arc planned for this show leading towards Red Dragon and I think going beyond Red Dragon. It will be interesting, yes it’s safe to say Hannibal will be caught at some point but when that happens is to be left for the future.
M&C: Why do we gravitate to serial killers in pop culture?
Chorostecki: Brian’s exploring parts of ourselves that are psychopathic, psychological intrigue where you have that little part of yourself that wants to do something unacceptable to society kosher, that we see this amplified. It’s that line between fantasy and reality.
Fantasies are a safe environment is a safe area to explore that without branching out into reality. That would be so awful but that fascination for the potential in all of us to go into darkness is fascinating and that’s why we keep coming back. And at the end of the day they are just good stories. Otherwise we wouldn’t care.
Hannibal airs Thursdays at 10 pm ET/PT, on Citytv and NBC. CLICK HERE to check out M&C's review of Hannibal. CLICK HERE to see production stills from upcoming episodes of Hannibal!
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