I do love animals so much, and have a great respect for them emotionally and intellectually, because they are so different from human beings.

Our idea for Hannibal Lecter is that he's very reactionary - he's somebody who can adapt really well to circumstances.

Food is art, I believe. If you are going to be serving a living thing, you have to honor that living thing with some kind of care and thought and preparation to rationalize the taking of that life in some way.

Anything that happens on any show is a plot contrivance because that's just storytelling.

Everything was so designed by Hannibal to break down Will in the first season, until Will's sanity became questionable. It's so much easier to believe that somebody losing their mind is capable of terrible things than it is to consider Frasier Crane, a charming, fun doctor who invites you to dinner. If you put those two in a police lineup, you're going to pick the guy who's melting down.

For Hannibal, it's really about food as art and also, Hannibal's specific brand of art. And I guess I'm a bit of a foodie.

I love the supernatural in storytelling. The Twilight Zone was a huge influence on me, in terms of writing and storytelling, where you're not restricted to the parameters of reality to tell your tale.