20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Hannibal

That might be misleading: the Danish actor who plays Hannibal isn't drawing on actual life experience to convincingly portray a man who enjoys chowing down on human flesh. But he may very well draw on his past experience playing other men who enjoy chowing down on human flesh, which is admittedly still a weird thing to be typecast as.

Mads Mikkelsen is electrifying as Hannibal Lecter, to the point that you can see how he charms people to the degree that they're then powerless to stop him gnawing on their vital organs. Perhaps his early role in the 2003 dark comedy The Green Butchers played a part in that, where Mikkelesen starred as a very different kind of cannibal.

A much less refined one, for one thing. In The Green Butchers, he plays a depressed butcher called Svend who accidentally discovers that human flesh is a real hit with his customers (long story) and becomes a serial killer to provide more meat for his “chicky-wickies”. The killer twist, of course, is that it's his meat marinade customers lover.