Silence of the Lambs CBS Series Casts Its Clarice Starling

Hello Clarice, indeed!

Per The Hollywood Reporter, CBS has cast Rebecca Breeds (The Originals, Pretty Little Liars) to play FBI agent Clarice Starling in Clarice, a sequel series to the 1991 true crime classic The Silence of the Lambs.

CBS announced Clarice earlier this year at the Winter TCA press tour. The show is set to take place in 1993, two years after Clarice Starling (originally played by Jodie Foster) met with Hannibal Lecter and took down serial killer Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb. The series will follow Starling as she continues her work of tracking down serial killer for the FBI. She will also have to navigate the high-stakes political world of Washington DC. The project will be written and executive produced by Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek: Discovery) and Jenny Lumet (The Mummy). Heather Kadin and Aaron Baiers will serve as executive producers as well.

“After more than 20 years of silence, we’re privileged to give voice to one of America’s most enduring heroes – Clarice Starling,” Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet said in a statement when the project was announced. “Clarice’s bravery and complexity have always lit the way, even as her personal story remained in the dark. But hers is the very story we need today: her struggle, her resilience, her victory. Her time is now, and always.”

Rebecca Breeds is an Australian actress best known for Aurora de Martel on The Originals and Nicole Gordon on Pretty Little Liars. Both were recurring roles. She was last seen in the 2018 Australian film Slam and before that on television in 2017’s The Brave. Breeds previously worked with CBS for the 2013 Kal Penn-starring sitcom We Are Men.

By all reports and appearances, CBS has big plans for Breeds and Clarice. The project already a series commitment and according to THR has also already assembled a writers’ room. That makes sense given The Silence of the Lambs and Clarice Starling’s enormous cultural influence. 

Starling first appeared as the protagonist of Thomas Harris’s 1988 novel Silence of the Lambs. She continued on into Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film. The character also popped up (this time played by Julianne Moore) in the 2001 sequel Hannibal. Clarice Starling was named the sixth best movie hero ever by the American Film Institute in 2003. Gillian Anderson was even rumored to have been taken over the iconic role in NBC’s Hannibal before it was canceled. 

Now it’s Breeds’ turn to step into the shoes of this brilliant and haunted investigator.