Spooks star Richard Armitage cast as serial killer in US thriller Hannibal

By Patrick McLennan
( What's on TV )
published

Richard Armitage has been cast as creepy serial killer The Tooth Fairy in the hit TV series Hannibal.

The Hobbit and Spooks star will join Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Hannibal Lecter in the US show, with NBC announcing his casting using a pun on his Hobbit character's name Thorin Oakenshield.

NBC, which screens the show in the US, tweeted: "Francis Dolarhyde is going to be a real *Thorin* Hannibal's side. Ok... we'll stop."

Richard is set to play Francis Dolarhyde, AKA The Tooth Fairy, who features in Tom Harris's novel Red Dragon, which the TV series and films were based on, and who has been played in the past by Ralph Fiennes and Tom Noonan.

He is nicknamed The Tooth Fairy because he bites the bodies of his victims and made his most memorable previous appearance in the 2002 film Red Dragon, alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins and Edward Norton.

Richard, 43, played Lucas North in Spooks and Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood, both BBC1 series.

Hannibal screens on Sky Living in the UK.

 

Patrick McLennan
Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.