Iconic Quote
“It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”
— Buffalo Bill, The Silence of the Lambs
What Makes Them Great
Buffalo Bill is the villain Lecter points Clarice toward — and Levine's physical commitment to the character's brokenness is as disturbing as Hopkins' sophistication. The basement scene with the night-vision goggles is pure sustained dread.
The Villain
Ted Levine's Buffalo Bill is the serial killer that Clarice Starling is actually hunting in The Silence of the Lambs — a disturbed man who kidnaps women and skins them to create a 'woman suit.' While Lecter gets the accolades, Levine's performance is equally extraordinary: pathetic, terrifying, and deeply human in his confusion about identity. The night-vision basement sequence is the most claustrophobic horror scene ever filmed.
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