Michelle Pfeiffer turned down the chance to star in The Silence of the Lambs.

The 62-year-old actress passed on the chance to play Clarice Starling in the iconic 1991 horror movie — with the part going to Jodie Foster — and confessed that she was "trepidatious" about the "evil" featured in the movie which went on to win five Oscars, including Best Picture. 

In a New Yorker interview, Michelle said: "With Silence of the Lambs, I was trepidatious. There was such evil in that film. The thing I most regret is missing the opportunity to do another film with [director] Jonathan [Demme]."

Michelle and Demme previously worked on 1987's Married to the Mob. 

The Ant-Man and the Wasp star added that she was uncomfortable with the end of the movie as "evil ruled out".

Michelle said: "It was that evil won in the end, that at the end of the film evil ruled out. I was uncomfortable with that ending. I didn't want to put that out in the world."

She also spoke about how she is more comfortable playing characters that are a "little rougher around the edges" and has to work harder when portraying posh roles.

She said, "I definitely am more comfortable playing characters that are a little rougher around the edges, and the sort of more middle-to-lower-class. I don't know if you're not really allowed to say that anymore, class, I don't know.

"But I do think it's more of a stretch for me to play Ruth Madoff or Frances Price, or Age of Innocence. Definitely those roles are foreign to the way I grew up. I have to work harder to personalise those parts."

Michelle's breakout role was in Grease 2 although she confessed that she didn't understand what the movie's poor reception meant.

She explained: "I didn't really understand what it meant. I was just so young, and you're just so happy to have a job, and have a pay cheque. One big critic said that I 'whined my way all through the film'. Maybe I did, I don't know. But I didn't really pay much attention, back then, to the box office." — BANG

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