The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe portrayal of the character Buffalo Bill, also known as Jame Gumb, has been criticized over the years by the transgender community as harmful.<\/p>\n
Buffalo Bill was a\u00a0serial killer\u00a0that murdered women in order to harvest their skin to wear.<\/p>\n
Despite the character\u2019s sexual orientation not being outwardly stated, he was seen as trans and gender-nonconforming in the film.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know more, and I\u2019m a lot wiser about transgender issues,\u201d he added to the outlet. \u201cThere are some lines in that script and movie that are unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\nTed Levine as Buffalo Bill in the 1991 movie \u201cThe Silence of the Lambs.\u201d \u00a9Orion Pictures Corp\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201c[It\u2019s] just over time and having gotten aware and worked with trans folks, and understanding a bit more about the culture and the reality of the meaning of gender,\u201d Levine said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that the film vilified that, and it\u2019s f\u2013king wrong. And you can quote me on that,\u201d Levine noted.<\/p>\n
Despite that, Levin said about his performance as Buffalo Bill: \u201cI didn\u2019t play him as being gay or trans. I think he was just a f\u2013ked up heterosexual man. That\u2019s what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\nTed Levine attends the premiere of \u201cChild Of Grace\u201d at Raleigh Studios on Aug. 11, 2014, in Los Angeles. FilmMagic<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn the film, Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal Lecter, who is consulted by FBI trainee Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster.<\/p>\n
Lecter is a cannibalistic serial killer who advises Starling, in order to help capture Buffalo Bill.<\/p>\n
The film, directed by Jonathan Demme, was released on Valentine\u2019s Day in 1991, and ended up becoming a global hit. <\/p>\n
It won five Oscars, including best actor, best actress, best screenplay, best director and best picture.<\/p>\n\u201cThe Silence of the Lambs,\u201d won five Oscars, including best actor, best actress, best screenplay, best director and best picture. \u00a9Orion Pictures Corp\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nDemme\u2019s producing partner, Edward Saxon, said to the outlet: \u201cWe were really loyal to the book. As we made the film, there was just no question in our minds that Buffalo Bill was a completely aberrant personality \u2014 that he wasn\u2019t gay or trans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was sick. To that extent, we missed it. From my point of view, we weren\u2019t sensitive enough to the legacy of a lot of stereotypes and their ability to harm,\u201d he explained to THR.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s regret, but it didn\u2019t come from any place of malice. It actually came from a place of seeing this guy. We all had dear friends and family who were gay. We thought it would just be very clear that Buffalo Bill adapts different things from society, from a place of an incredibly sick pathology,\u201d Saxon said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source pagesix.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ted Levine, who played Buffalo Bill in the film\u00a0Silence of the Lambs, spoke out about transphobia criticism the movie has received since its release 35 years ago. \u201cThere are certain aspects of the movie that don\u2019t hold up too well,\u201d Levine told\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter. The portrayal of the character Buffalo Bill, also known as Jame […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2283685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[25538,25661,24003,316971,368720,442389,373626],"class_list":["post-2283684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-actors","tag-anthony-hopkins","tag-celebrity-news","tag-jodie-foster","tag-silence-of-the-lambs","tag-ted-levine","tag-transgender"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Silence-of-the-Lambs-star-Ted-Levine-denounces-his-legendary.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2283684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2283686,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283684\/revisions\/2283686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2283685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2283684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2283684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2283684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}