Movie legends Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster reunited via Zoom to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of The Silence of the Lambs.

The pair were happy to see each other and reminisced about their experiences during and after filming.

"It's a life-changing adventure, that movie, for both of us," Foster said during a one-hour remote conversation for Variety's Actors on Actors.

"I'm sure you still get people who come up to you and say, 'Would you like a nice Chianti?'" she joked to Hopkins.

"Oh yeah, they do!" he agreed.

Hopkins also revealed the real-life inspiration behind his iconic character, the manipulative killer known as Dr. Hannibal Lector.

"He's like a machine. He's like HAL, the computer in 2001: 'Good evening, Dave.' He just comes in like a silent shark," Hopkins explained.

"I remember there was a teacher at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and his name was Christopher Fettes. He was a movement teacher. He had a cutting voice, and he would slice you to pieces. His analysis of what you were doing was so precise; it's a method that stayed with me for all my life.

"When I was doing it, I thought, 'This is Chris Fettes. This is the voice. This man is merciless.' I remember the cage scene, when I said, 'No!' Wrong, try it again. That, to anyone, to the observer, the recipient of that, is lethal and charismatic."

He also recalled one of his favourite scenes involving Foster, which is where her character FBI cadet Clarice Starling gets into a Quantico elevator with her much taller male colleagues.

"I'm like, 'This is brilliant, because you are a smaller person in this big, macho male world, coming in as the hero,'" Hopkins noted.

Foster then shared the most important part of her character was nailing her rural West Virginia accent.

"She had this quietness. There was almost a shame that she wasn't bigger, that she wasn't stronger, this person trying to overcome the failure of the body they were born in,' she explained.

"I understood that was her strength. In some ways, she was just like the victims - another girl in another town. The fact that she could relate to those victims made her the hero."

The classic film went on to win the five big Academy Awards, which are best picture, best director (Jonathan Demme, best actor (Hopkins), best actress (Foster) and best adapted screenplay (Ted Tally).