Umpteen years after rumours hit the web pegging her as the one to replace Jodie Foster in the big-screen version (not sure if those rumours were true or not, but it’s easy to believe the flaxen-haired thesp would be on the list), Gillian Anderson has signed to star on TV’s incarnation of “Hannibal”.

The “X-Files” star, absent from TV screens for about a decade now, has agreed to play a doctor in a multi-episode arc on the small-screen drama.

EW reports that “Anderson is going to play Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier — murderous psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s (Mads Mikkelsen) own therapist.”

“Every therapist needs their own head examined and we are ecstatic that Gillian Anderson has chosen Hannibal to mark her return to American television after 10 years to portray Dr. Lecter’s personal psychiatrist,” show creator Bryan Fuller said in a statement. “Her intelligence and sophistication, not to mention her pedigree of ground-breaking TV, make her the perfect actress to match wits and psychological manipulations with one of the greatest villains of pop culture. I couldn’t be more excited.”

The series, which serves as a prequel to “Silence of the Lambs”, stars Hugh Dancy in the role of Will Graham. The English thesp is backed by a bravura support cast including Laurence Fishburne, Eddie Izzard, Gina Torres, Molly Shannon, Ellen Greene and Chelan Simmons.

NBC are looking at a Spring launch for “Hannibal”.