Exclusive: Don Mancini Talks Joining Hannibal Season 3 – Part 1
Staci Layne Wilson
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Don Mancini is the father of Chucky. Literally! Mancini created the devilish doll we’ve come to know and love since the very first Child’s Play movie back in the 80s. He’s written every installment in the franchise and directed two of the Chucky films.
Chucky is in his DNA, but Mancini’s heart (served up on a silver platter) belongs to Hannibal Lecter. It always has, ever since the first Thomas Harris novel came out. So when Mancini got the opportunity of a lifetime – to be a staff writer on the “Hannibal” series – he jumped at it.
In Part 1 of this in-depth, three-part interview, Mancini tells us how he landed the job and what it’s like to work with showrunner Bryan Fuller. In Parts 2 and 3, he’ll spill about what’s to come this season, how those recipes are conceived, and even a bit about the erotic subtext between Will and Hannibal and what to expect from that in this season.
Dread Central: We know you were already a big fan of Hannibal Lecter, dating back to the books by Thomas Harris. And that you’ve seen all the movies, and so on… so, how’d this great opportunity come up for you to write on what was already one of your favorite TV shows?
Don Mancini: The way it happened was, I have a friend named Michael Kessler, who works as an associate producer on the show. And he has since the first season. He lives and works in Toronto, where the show is shot. We’ve been friends for a few years, and I’ve been in the habit of talking about the show with him because I was such a fan. And I would either talk to him or email him after each episode saying, ‘Oh I loved this. Are you guys going to do Mason and Margot Verger…?’ and all this stuff.
So, about a year ago he said, ‘Don, you should be writing on the show.’ And I said ‘Well, I would love that.’ And he said to me, ‘You should send Bryan Fuller a note.’ I had never met Bryan before. I am a huge fan of his work, of course. And we followed each other on Twitter, but we’d never really spoken or anything like that. So, my friend Michael Kessler gave me his email address and said, ‘You should just write him.’ And I felt like… I’d never done anything like that before and it seemed kind of forward and pushy, but you know, Mike said, ‘What have you got to lose? Just do it.’ So I did.
I basically wrote Bryan Fuller a fan letter. I said how much I loved his work and loved “Hannibal” and that I was not only a huge fan of the show but a huge fan of the franchise, and I mean literally: I have read all of those books multiple times to the point people would make fun of me. Like my friends would even say to me, ‘You’re reading Silence of the Lambs again? You’re reading Hannibal again?’ So, I wrote this letter to Bryan and said, in addition to being a huge fan, I have a total recall for all things Hannibal and that in most walks of life, this is an embarrassment for me, but maybe it could be of use to him.
I really didn’t think anything would come of that. But he wrote me back. And he said he loved Chucky, and that we should get together and talk. I said, ‘That’s great.’ So, last year at the Saturn Awards, Bryan came up to me. At this point he had responded by note, but we hadn’t gotten together to meet yet because he had gone out of town or something. So, I was just sort of waiting to hear back from them. He came up to introduce himself to me at the Saturns and said, ‘Let’s get together for dinner next week.’
I said, ‘Great.’ And all the evening I’m like, ‘Please let me win this [Saturn] award. Please let me win because I would have a much better chance of getting this gig if I win the award…’ And fortunately, I did!
Martha De Laurentiis is also an executive producer on “Hannibal”; she and her late husband, Dino, had controlled the Hannibal franchise. She was there too, and I made a point of going up to her. I would have anyway because I’ve known Martha for 20-some years and I’ve actually worked with her a couple of times before this. I said, ‘I just really love your show.’
Anyway, so it all worked out. I ended up meeting with Bryan, and he said, ‘Yeah. Let’s do it. And it made me think, ‘Oh, I should write more fan letters to people because you never know.’ I mean, it’s like, ‘Wow. That was easy.’ But working on a show is very hard. It’s just the nature of television. It sort of takes over your life. But it is a spoiling experience for me because I already loved it so much. The people were so great to me and they were very welcoming and I had a blast [writing my two episodes].
DC: As a longtime film director and writer, where you’re working solo on the creative aspects, this must be a real change for you, since in TV the showrunner is the center of everything.
DM: Well, yes — as you can imagine, it’s very different. It’s completely different, I found mostly for me on this particular project, in positive ways. I loved the experience of working in the writers’ room. That to me was a blast. As it turned out, everyone on the show was smart and funny and like-minded, and that part of the experience to me, frankly, never felt like work. I mean, because I go to this office every day, [it was work]; but we’d just sit around and talk about “Hannibal” all day. And we’d get paid for it. I would talk about “Hannibal” with people all day anyway!
So, that part of it was great, but Bryan, you know… I think this show is unusual, even among most TV shows, in that it is very much a singular version of one artist – in this case, Bryan Fuller. He has a very specific idea of what he wants to do and how he wants to use the Thomas Harris mythology; and when we first met, he pitched me his long-range idea for the entire season, and it was very specific. I think it’s unusual, even in TV. His vision is so specific, it gets down to every minute detail. He really functions as a director – not to take anything away from the amazing directors that work on the show.
DC: The show does look and feel like art house cinema.
DM: All of Bryan’s shows have been noted for being stylistically quite amazing. So much of that comes from him. So, it really was about serving his vision, but then the daily process of breaking down each episode, and each episode into the five or six acts – six acts if you count the teaser. You know, that is a very collaborative process where you’re trying to hit the broad strokes – sometimes specific strokes as well that Bryan has. [He] put these poles into the ground, saying, ‘We want to hit this; and we want to hit this; and we want to use this from the novel Hannibal; and we want to use this from Red Dragon; and we want to use this from Hannibal Rising.’
But then getting there and getting the specifics, that all becomes part of the process, all seven of us, seven writers, in the room working together to make that happen. I just find that so much fun. But I’ve never done this before where you’ve got this situation where you have a brain trust in six or seven other minds to help you. I had never experienced that because I had never worked collaboratively as a writer before. I’d only ever worked alone. So, that was great. You have all these other smart people to help you in that endeavor. So, that aspect of it was great.
DC: Do you come up with your own stories, or…?
DM: Not really. You get assigned episodes. I, as a writer and as a producer, joined the season a little bit late because of my timing of when I sent that letter to Bryan. So I missed the first four episodes. I joined as a producer, and so my name will be on the show starting with Episode 3.05 (“Contorno”) and then continuing throughout. Then as a writer, I worked on Episodes 3.06 (“Dolce”) and 3.10 (“…And the Woman Clothed with the Sun”).
So, the way it works is all the writers get assigned specific episodes. And when we’re finished breaking an episode in the room, which takes two weeks, three weeks sometimes, then you go off and you write your outline. This is in the case of “Hannibal”; I’m guessing that’s how it is in all episodic TV, but… I don’t have anything to compare it to.
DC: You already know what’s come before, and a little ahead after your episode, but can you talk a bit about the actual process?
DM: Once the episode is broken down in the room, the walls are covered in bulletin boards – episode one, two, three, four, five, six – and they remain on the wall. We’re in there for months on end. And so it’s just a process of breaking it down between, in the case of “Hannibal,” because it’s an NBC show, you’ve got teaser acts one through five, and breaking it all down to each moment.
So then, a specific writer gets assigned an episode – as I mentioned, in my case 6 and 10. And so then you go off, and based on the board, you write the outline, which is about 15 pages long. You give it to Bryan and his main lieutenant, Steve Lightfoot – first you would give it to Steve. And then Steve would give you notes. And then finally it would go to Bryan. And then, after going through that process of notes, you’d finally go and write the episode. You have basically two weeks max to write the episode. All the speed of it was new to me. Challenging, yet stimulating.
DC: How much can you do creatively? Bryan Fuller’s name is on every show as a co-writer, right?
DC: At that point is where it becomes really challenging, at least on “Hannibal,” because Bryan has an avalanche of notes, always. Always. Because it’s his process and he has a very specific vision. And as you just mentioned, he rewrites all of the scripts. At least he did on this season; I guess on Season 2 as well. He rewrites them all.
So, that is the filtering process by which “Hannibal” works. I think it’s fairly typical that that happens. I know Bryan would have to deal with the network and the studio, but we never did. And I know that that’s very unusual in television. Pleasing Bryan was challenging definitely, but it was good. In the writers’ room the buck stopped with Bryan. And so that certainly made it easier.
DC: You didn’t have to deal with five producers telling you ten different things, like in the film business.
DM: Right, which is so typical in movies. And I’ve certainly dealt with that all the time. And it’s just that juggling. On “Hannibal” it was really just Bryan.
DC: How do you know the nuances of each character? Is there a cheat-sheet, like, “Will would never call anyone Dude,” or…?
DM: It’s just instinct really. Everyone who wrote on the show was as you would probably expect, a big fan of the series. And I don’t think that that’s necessarily true of all television either. This was a really special experience, and we all knew we were working on this amazing thing. It was like, ‘Wow, we are so lucky to be doing this.’ We’re all very enthusiastic about it and all knowledgeable about the material. So, I think you develop an instinct for how the characters speak, which doesn’t necessarily mean you get it right every time, but you’re sort of left to your own devices. And I think they’re hiring us with the confidence that we’re going to be able to accomplish that with some degree of success.
“Hannibal” is an interesting combination of being unusually cinematic for a TV show, but it’s also quite verbose. I mean, the characters talk a lot. It’s a chatty show. And I say that in a very positive way. I love the language in the show, and I think a lot of that was set by Thomas Harris, who is a great writer. And I know that Bryan also, obviously, is a huge fan of Thomas Harris’ canon. But Bryan sort of sets the tone for that kind of dialogue. It’s philosophical and poetic. Some people find it sometimes bordering on too verbose, maybe. I’m not one of them. I like that, especially coming from the stuff that I’ve done. Chucky – it’s 180 degrees away from “Hannibal.”
So, that was one of the things that I loved about working on it, that it was so different. Even though it’s horror, it’s a very different animal. And although it certainly has a wit, a very dark wit about it, it’s pretty straightforward. It’s genuinely disturbing stuff. Sometimes some of the Chucky movies are, but it’s just a different animal. And there’s just a lot more to it in the dialogue and the character interaction. Not to mention the amount of characters because it’s a TV show – it’s just way, way more dense.
We’ll be back with Parts 2 and 3 of our chat with Don soon. And be sure to tune in to NBC on Thursday night for “Hannibal” Episode 3.04, “Aperitivo.”
“Hannibal” Episode 3.04 – “Aperitivo” (6/25/15; 10-11 PM)
DR. CHILTON’S RETURN GIVES A GLIMPSE INTO THE EVENTS THAT FOLLOWED HANNIBAL’S BRUTAL ATTACK — After surviving a disfiguring gunshot, Dr. Fredrick Chilton (guest star Raúl Esparza) is now focused on rallying support to capture Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen), using Will (Hugh Dancy) as bait.
Jack (Laurence Fishburne) is distracted by Bella’s (guest star Gina Torres) failing health, but he implores Will to abandon the risky idea of finding Hannibal. Meanwhile, Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas) entertains a different approach, potentially partnering with Mason Verger (guest star Joe Anderson) to utilize his vast resources. Glenn Fleshler and Katharine Isabelle also guest star.
For more info be sure to visit “Hannibal” on NBC.com, “like” “Hannibal” on Facebook, and follow “Hannibal” on Twitter.
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