Mads Mikkelsen Says Hannibal And Will Graham Almost Kissed on ‘Hannibal’

Since NBC’s Hannibal debuted, Fannibals (yes, that is the fanbase name) have wondered whether there was something more going on with the two main characters than meets the eye. Something romantic, in fact. And thanks to a new interview with star Mads Mikkelsen, we now know that yep, you weren’t imagining Hannibal and Will Graham making kissy-faces at each other, it actually almost happened in the final scene of the series.

“Cannibalism, obviously,” Mikkelsen said in a new interview with Vulture. “This is the ultimate way to love someone in his world, to eat them — right?”

In Hannibal, the bygone psychological-horror series that NBC canceled after three seasons, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen played the infamous forensic psychiatrist and people eater Hannibal Lecter, and Hugh Dancy played criminal profiler Will Graham. According to Mikkelsen, that relationship was played as a romance from the beginning. Not only that, but it was one that was consummated not physically, but in the act of killing and eating somebody. What a way for a show to bow out, right?

“We actually did a couple of takes of the very last scene where we were looking at each other, and it was a little too obvious — it was almost a kiss,” Mikkelsen said. “Me and Hugh were like, ‘Why not? We have a couple of takes. Let’s do one. It might be cool.'”

Mikkelsen continues to note that Bryan Fuller, who developed Hannibal for NBC, was down with it, too, and was also aware of how it would play with the show’s rabid fan base. “A lot of the Fannibals wanted it as well,” Mikkelsen said. “It’s been a subject of homoerotic fan art. And for good reason, because they are so united as twins in many ways. But we never wanted it to be a physical thing. It was something much bigger than that.”

Fans, as well as its cast and crew, were left in the lurch by Hannibal’s cancellation. “We had something more up the sleeve, but then it didn’t happen,” Mikkelsen says of the fourth season that never was. “Having said that, I would love to go back. Everybody wants to go back, and if there’s only one season and we’re sure about that, [Fuller] can finish it in a proper, surprising, stunning way.”

And about that kiss that never happened between Lecter and Graham, and the show in general, Mikkelsen is wistful.

“I’ve been wondering if we had been on some other platform and could do whatever we wanted, would we have gone more for the graphic stuff and forgotten some of the poetry?” Mikkelsen says. “Maybe it was a good thing we had to hold back. It served the show really well that we didn’t go full-blast Walking Dead on it.”

Where to watch Hannibal