‘Clarice’ Casts Trans Actress Jen Richards

Jen Richards, a transgender actress and advocate, was brought into the cast of Clarice after first being hired to consult on the new CBS series. Richards, who has done her fair share of writing, acting, producing, and advocating, was initially recommended by GLAAD’s director of trans representation, Nick Adams.

The spinoff takes a deep-dive into the life of FBI agent Clarice Starling as she returns to the field in 1993, six months after the events unfolded in the film The Silence of the Lambs. The psychological horror will focus on Clarice’s troubled past and vulnerable future as she begins to find her voice, “in a man’s world.” The first season will premier on CBS on, Thursday, February 11 at 9 p.m. MST.

Richards initially thought she was just going to help the writers and producers “craft the character and make sure some younger, prettier trans actress had a good experience on set,” Richards admits. However, she herself ended up being cast as the character she was hired to help flesh out.

“All I can say is that the character intersects with Clarice’s storyline in a way that her transness isn’t central to her storyline, but her identity as a trans woman prompts her to discuss with Clarice the complicated legacy of Buffalo Bill,” Richards says during a virtual premier event.

This isn’t the first time Richards has spoken about the problematic character of Buffalo Bill. In the 2020 Netflix documentary titled Disclosure, Jen spoke about how representation can often affect perception.

“I was about to go through transition, and I worked up the courage to tell one of my colleagues. And she’s a very, very smart woman, very, very talented musician, very well-educated, very worldly, and she looked at me and goes, ‘You mean like Buffalo Bill?’” Jen recalls in the documentary.

“Her only point of reference was this disgusting, psychotic serial killer who hunts women in order to kill them and skin them, in order to wear their bodies—to literally appropriate the female form, which is exactly the feminist argument against the existence of trans women.”

Now, years later, the same woman who was once compared to the psychotic serial killer-character, will have the chance to dissect his legacy on screen. A hopeful step in the right direction when it comes to trans representation.