Rebecca Breeds Cast as Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ Sequel TV Show

While Jodie Foster has tackled a wide variety of roles, few have been as acclaimed — or as powerful — as her turn as FBI agent Clarice Starling in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs (for which she won the Best Actress Academy Award). That film, based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Harris, focused on Clarice’s efforts to track down serial killer “Buffalo Bill” (Ted Levine) and being forced to enlist the aid of killer Hannibal Lecter (Sir Anthony Hopkins) to do so. Now Clarice (without Jodie or Hannibal) is getting new life on a possible CBS series with Rebecca Breeds taking on the role.

Formerly a star of The Originals and Pretty Little Liars, Rebecca will be stepping into the role of Clarice in a story set in 1993, about a year after Silence. The proposed series is described as an in-depth look into Clarice’s personal story as, having recovered emotionally from events of the film, she returns to the field and continues her career of pursuing sexual predators and serial killers, while simultaneously dealing with the politics of 1990s Washington.

For a little background, Rebecca was born on June 17, 1987 in Sydney, Australia. Her career began in her homeland, first in commercials and then in the feature film Newcastle. She was cast as Cassie Cometh in the third “series” (season) of Blue Water High, during which she auditioned for and was cast as Ruby Buckton on the soap opera Home and Away. Heading to America, she found herself cast as Nicole Gordon in season 6 of Pretty Little Liars and in a season 3 recurring role as Aurora de Martel on the CW’s The Originals. She starred in the TV miniseries Molly, playing Camille; and a legal soap opera pilot titled Miranda’s Rights, which never aired.

The success of The Silence of the Lambs started a whole Hannibal Lecter cottage industry, including the 2001 movie sequel Hannibal, the 2002 prequel Red Dragon and the even earlier-set 2007 prequel, Hannibal Rising. The character, as played by Mads Mikkelsen, aired for three seasons on an NBC series.

Although Clarice has only been given a commitment from CBS for a pilot, there’s obviously already great confidence in it since a penalty will have to be paid if it doesn’t go to series and a writer’s room has been set up. The pilot is written and executive produced by Alex Kurtzman (who is spearheading the various Star Trek series on CBS All Access) and Jenny Lumet.