In The Silence of the Lambs, the FBI trainee Starling’s first name is Clarice.
Clarice Starling is a young FBI trainee assigned to interview imprisoned serial killer Hannibal Lecter. She hopes Lecter’s insight will help investigators identify Buffalo Bill, a murderer who abducts women and skins some of his victims.
Jodie Foster played Clarice in the 1991 film, directed by Jonathan Demme and adapted from Thomas Harris’s 1988 novel. Foster’s performance won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and the character became one of the defining investigators in modern crime and horror cinema.
Clarice is sometimes confused with Catherine Martin, one of Buffalo Bill’s intended victims. Catherine is the woman trapped in the well, while Clarice is the investigator who works to rescue her. The film’s title refers to Lecter’s unsettling question about the lambs Clarice heard screaming as a child.