The acclaimed actress will not reprise her Oscar-winning role of FBI agent Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs in the planned film sequel, she reveals in the December issue of W magazine.
"I stand to make more money doing that sequel than I've ever made in my life," she tells the fashion mag of the project simply dubbed Hannibal. "But who cares, if it betrays Clarice--who is a person, in some strange way, to me."
In Hannibal, Clarice sheds her idealism and eventually hooks up (and dines) with Hannibal Lecter, the crazy cannibal she investigated in Silence of the Lambs. At least that's the way things went down in author Thomas Harris' best-selling novel of the same name that hit bookstores this past summer. (Harris also wrote the book on which the original Lambs was based.)
"The movie worked because people believed in her heroism," the 37-year-old Foster tells W. "I won't play her with negative attributes she'd never have."
Although money is being poured into Hannibal (producer Dino De Laurentiis snapped up the book rights for a whopping $10 million), Foster is the second Silence of the Lambs veteran to distance herself from the project. In June, director Jonathan Demme, who helmed the first Lambs, dropped out of Hannibal. (Alien director Ridley Scott replaced him.)
The script for the gore-fest is also a work-in-progress. Earlier this month, the New York Daily News reported that Universal Studios scrapped David Mamet's screenplay and hired Oscar-winning Schindler's List screenwriter Steve Zaillian.
No final word yet if the original people-eater Anthony Hopkins will reprise his role. Hopkins, Foster and Demme all won Oscars for their work in the 1991 box-office smash. Additionally, the film was named Best Picture.
Foster--now a $15 million-a-flick actress--next will be seen on screens this Christmas in the decidedly less grisly Anna and the King, the umpteenth retelling of the English governess who travelled to Thailand in the mid-1800s. (See: The King and I.) It is Foster's first major film work since giving birth to son Charles in June 1998.