Hannigram Quotes

Actors & Producers about Season 3

Mads Mikkelsen: "Hannibal's only thought down the cliff was that he was holding the man that he loved."

Mads Mikkelsen: "One thing's for sure, Hannibal really really loves Will."

Mads Mikkelsen: "Will Graham is the most precious thing he has. The thing he loves most in the world."

Hugh Dancy: "When Season 3 picks up, we're both pining for each other. What I've found is that when people start talking about the show on set, trying to work out a scene, pretty soon everyone starts talking about the worst relationship they were ever in. It is a love story, but obviously not a very functional one."

https://www.pinterest.de/pin/313211349096678513/

Bryan Fuller on Twitter about the love between Will and Hannibal: "Their love is definitely queer, but I have to soak in the Palmolive of Season 4 to accurately state which other letters of the LGBTQIAPK rainbow they fall under. I think there's more than one."

In an interview on Collider, Bryan Fuller, the creator, has confirmed Hannibal is in love with Will: "I think that Hannibal is omni-sexual. Hannibal is absolutely in love with Will Graham because he represents the magic of humanity in a way that transcends sexuality."

https://collider.com/bryan-fuller-hannibal-silence-of-the-lambs-interview/
https://bloody-disgusting.com/interviews/3372394/3372394/

Bryan Fuller discussing what motivated him to verbally acknowledge the romance between Will and Hannibal:

TVLINE: "So, your final shot of Will and Hannibal is the two of them embracing and going over the cliff together. In the first two seasons, their relationship — or the possible romance between them — was mostly between the lines. In the last few episodes of Season 3, though, it started to feel a little more like, "The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Sociopaths in Love". We've had Bedelia asking Will if he aches for Dr. Lecter. Will and Hannibal's "goodbye chat" felt like a breakup. To me, it's all seemed more overtly romantic, and I just wonder if that's what you've been trying to project."

Bryan Fuller: "It felt like we had to s–t or get off the pot, ultimately, because there had been so much going on between these two men that when Will asks, "Is Hannibal Lecter in love with me?" it is very much about death and the romance between these two men. There is a quality to connections that go above and beyond sexuality. You can have this intimate connection with somebody that then causes you to wonder where the lines of your own sexuality are. And we didn't quite broach the sexuality. It was certainly suggested, but the love is absolutely on the table. There is love between these two men, and confusion between these two men. We had to articulate it, and the idea for a [potential] Season 4 was an interesting continuation of that, as well as a subversion of it at the same time. So it's strange to look at [this week's episode] as a finale, because part of me believes that the most interesting chapter of Will Graham's story is yet to be told."

TVLINE: "Circling back to the Will/Hannibal/Dolarhyde showdown — I felt like we didn't really know 100 percent what way it was going to go. Will actually says to Hannibal that he intends to see him "changed" by Dolarhyde. And then, at one point, when Hannibal is looking at Will pulling out the knife, I wondered, is he signaling to Dolarhyde with his eyes or is he signaling Will? How did you view the scene? Do you feel like Will and Hannibal were always planning to end the Red Dragon, or was it unclear even to them?"

Bryan Fuller: "I feel like Will was going there knowing that he very likely would not be able to finish Hannibal himself, because of his feelings for him, and that he needed Francis Dolarhyde to do it for him. And he knew that he may not survive it; it's something he says several times through the episode. Bedelia says early in the scene with Will, "You can't live with him, you can't live without him." That's exactly what this is about. Will can't live without Hannibal, and he knows that in that moment, once they'd experienced a murder together — a vicious, brutal murder where they hack a guy up with a knife and a hatchet — he's like, "That was kind of fun. That was a good time. In fact, it was beautiful." There's a realization of his mind being able to process that experience as a thing of beauty. With that, he knows there is very little chance of him being able to return to humanity, so off they go."

TVLINE: "Right. Over the cliff. It felt a little Thelma and Louise to me."

Bryan Fuller: "Absolutely."

https://tvline.com/2015/08/29/hannibal-series-finale-will-lecter-cliff-bryan-fuller-interview-season-4/

To the question of whether explicit Hannigram was a part of the initial plan, Bryan Fuller stated: "No, it naturally evolved because I guess I was absorbing so much of Mads and Hugh's performance, which felt like it was growing in intimacy, and it would have been inauthentic not to address it. Because all of these characters, and particularly Bedelia, was able to call out what she had witnessed [between Hannibal and Will], it seemed like a natural conclusion. I remember when I turned in the rewrite pages where Will asks Bedelia if Hannibal is in love with him, I got a note from Don Mancini, one of our writers who was always pushing for more homosexual text – not just context or subtext but text, text, text – and he was like, I'm so glad you put that in there! They said it! They said it!"

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a667077/hannibal-bryan-fuller-talks-season-4-sexual-fluidity-and-how-will-became-clarice-starling/

https://hannibal.fandom.com/wiki/Hannibal_and_Will#Post-Series

Bryan Fuller: "Mads and Hugh, there were a lot of takes where they got very intimate, and lips were hovering over lips. I definitely had the footage to go there, because Mads and Hugh were so game. They called me and warned me: We really went for it!"

Interviewer: "What is Will referring to when he tells Hannibal, It's beautiful?"

Hugh Dancy: "I think he's referring to the fact that in a way, in that final sequence, Hannibal realizes his longheld dream. By the very end, he and Will have killed someone in a kind of ritualistic, cold-blooded fashion. And they're both there, literally - I remember very clearly - dripping in blood, and that's kind of what Hannibal wanted to put into effect between them at the end of season 2. That's kind of what he imagined - they go off to Europe like slaughtering people or something. And Will is acknowledging to Hannibal that it was as extraordinary an experience as it was for Hannibal. And I talked to Bryan a lot about that, that the motivation for going off the cliff at the end had to be Will's realization not only that this thing had happend, but that he loved it, as opposed to just, Oh my God, what have I done? I finally arrived at this place I never wanted to be in. Oh, it's so terrible! It's not that. It's, This is beautiful."

https://www.pinterest.de/pin/313211349099020372/

Erotik ist die Überwindung von Hindernissen. Das verlockenste Hindernis ist dabei die Moral. ~ Karl Kraus

Hugh Dancy: "And I personally think that if Hannibal's going to survive, he would save Will. So I don't know. Let's just say they're on a beach somewhere."

Interviewer: "Just chilling on a beach?"

Hugh Dancy: "Yeah, just chilling on a beach. Drinking something out of a coconut. Or a skull."