Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter; a brilliant forensic psychiatrist recruited to the FBI in order to profile Will Graham. After previously abducting and brainwashing FBI recruit Miriam Lass, Lecter finds a perfect proxy for his crimes in Graham. Following Graham's acquittal, however, suspicion falls on Lecter, and following a desperate attempt to escape to Europe with psychiatrist Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier, he hands himself in to the FBI and is incarcerated in the Baltimore Institute for the Criminally Insane. Throughout the course of the series he develops romantic bonds with former student Alana Bloom, and, initially, has a close friendship with both Crawford. He also develops a close friendship with Will Graham: according to Bedelia Du Maurier, Hannibal is in love with Will Graham. He later reunites with Graham in order to provide expert insight to Francis Dolarhyde's psyche, and after being forced from police custody by Dolarhyde, retreats to a clifftop home with Graham. Dolarhyde shoots Lecter, resulting in a fight in which Lecter and Graham kill him. Graham embraces Lecter and throws them off the cliffside.