By William Gallagher BBC News Online

An interview with Anthony Hopkins on the set of Hannibal? It sounds like any number of ordinary actor profiles we get whenever a big film is about to open.

But Hannibal has been and gone, and this is a far more considered piece than a simple promotion tool.

It is full of famous people talking about Hopkins, but these stars were neither working with him nor as gushing as you might expect.

Gary Oldman worked with Anthony Hopkins on Hannibal

Alistair McGowan, a UK impersonator, does a sketch in which he parodies Hollywood documentaries.

He mimics celebrities over-enthusing about someone who has changed their life before asking: "Who did you say we were talking about?"

In the Hopkins Omnibus, Gary Oldman tells us straight: "I know Tony, but I don't know Tony."

Genuinely complex

Most people in this profile say something similar, to the point where you wonder why they are being interviewed.

But combined they give you the sense of a genuinely complex man.

They also give the profile its strength, in that they are used to confirm or to counterpoint everything that Anthony Hopkins said himself.

There is no on-camera interviewer here, no one there to visibly disagree with the stars or press for more details

Jodie Foster won an Oscar for her role in Silence of the Lambs

But the editing is sharp. Hopkins is allowed to appear funny and frank about how random his film choices are.

We cut immediately to a clip of Jodie Foster who says she does not believe him when he says this kind of thing.

It would have been good to see people actually questioned, to see the process by which they got to their praise or their mild criticism.

But the profile has the twin boons of great access to stars and very good editing skills.

What could have been a simple promotional film becomes a deep and engrossing profile precisely because it stays simple and straightforward.

The only surprise is that after learning of Hopkins's character, you wonder how the show got him to stay still long enough to be filmed.

Anthony Hopkins: A Taste for Hannibal is on BBC One on Wednesday at 2235 BST.