Hannibal (film) realized that Zaillian was "exorcising the 600 pages of the book. He was distilling through discussion what he was gonna finally do ... Frankly I could have just made it." It was unclear if Jodie Foster (Clarice Starling) and Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal Lecter) would reprise their respective roles for which they won Academy Awards in "The Silence of the Lambs" (best actress/actor). It became apparent that the producers and the studio could do without one of the original "stars" and would go on to find a replacement. The withdrawal of both Foster and Hopkins could possibly have been terminal for
Jodie Foster which left her with permanent scars on her back. Her other early film work includes the Raquel Welch vehicle "Kansas City Bomber" (1972), the Western "One Little Indian" (1973), the Mark Twain adaptation "Tom Sawyer" (1973), and Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974), in which she appeared in a supporting role as a "Ripple-drinking street kid". Foster has said she loved acting as a child, and values her early work for the experience it gave her: "Some people get quick breaks and declare, 'I'll never do commercials! That's so lowbrow!' I want to tell them, 'Well, I'm real