Ted Levine is expressing regret over his role as serial killer Jame Gumb in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, telling The Hollywood Reporter that aspects of the movie “don’t hold up” and suggesting it was wrong to “vilify” what he described as apparent gender confusion in the character.

Levine, who played the cross-dressing murderer known as “Buffalo Bill,” said he did not portray the character as gay or transgender but rather as “a f***ed-up heterosexual man.” Still, he argued that certain lines in the script were “unfortunate” and said that, in hindsight, the film mishandled sensitive cultural issues.

The movie, based on the 1988 novel by Thomas Harris, explicitly states that Gumb is not transgender but a deeply disturbed individual suffering from profound psychological pathology. During a 2014 interview, director Jonathan Demme emphasized that the character “didn’t wish to be another gender” but instead loathed himself and sought transformation as an escape from his own identity. Producer Edward Saxon similarly described Buffalo Bill as “sick,” not representative of any broader community.

Despite renewed criticism decades later, the film remains one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed thrillers. It became only the third movie in Academy history to sweep the five major awards at the Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Its stars, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, both won Academy Awards for their performances.

Levine’s apology reflects ongoing pressure within the entertainment industry to reassess older films through a modern cultural lens. Critics of such retrospective condemnations argue that the character was clearly portrayed as a violent psychopath, not a transgender individual, and that attempts to rewrite the film’s legacy ignore the explicit context provided in both the novel and the movie itself.