David Cronenberg, the talented Canadian directer behind everything from The Fly and Scanners to A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, has a new movie coming out and it isn't quite what you might expect. In A Dangerous Method, hitting theaters November 23rd, Viggo Mortensen plays Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender plays Carl Jung and Keira Knightley plays Sabina Spilrein, the woman whose case came between them. Based on a Christopher Hampton play about the true and unheralded story, the movie is a distinct, thought-provoking and un-Cronenbergian piece of work. Last month we sat down with the director for a lengthy, wide-ranging discussion of everything from his long-standing intrest in the world of Freud, how before it was movie based on a play A Dangerous Method was almost a Julia Roberts vehicle (!), the time he tried to make aDead Ringers TV show (!!) and what it was like working with Robert Pattinson on his next movie, based on Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis.
Viggo Mortensen, Magneto, and a movie with Rob Pattinson next, with all that Twilight hoopla around him. You don't mind stars with franchise baggage it seems. It's like with Viggo with The Lord of the Rings, frankly. We've talked about this a lot. He wouldn't have been a candidate for A History of Violence if it hadn't been for Lord of the Rings because he wasn't well-known, he was really kind of a B actor, character actor before Lord of the Rings made him a star. Therefore, he would not be somebody who could get you the financing that you need. It's something about casting that people don't think about but as a director, you really have to think about it because your producers make you think about it and so do your distributors. You say, "I want this guy," and they say "Forget it! Nobody knows who he is and we can't build a campaign around him to release to movie." So not only do you have to get the right guy, you have to figure out who that guy is creatively but he has to want to do it to, you have to be able to afford him, he has to be available at the time you want him and he has to have the star power to get your movie financed. It's very tricky casting a movie and for a director it's a huge part of what you do, to weave your way through this mine field and end up with the right guy in your movie. Because if you make a huge miscasting mistake, it can kill your movie before you've even shot a foot of film.
Have you ever made any huge casting mistakes? Yes, but I won't talk about them! [laughs] But not enough to kill the movie, I must say. There are only one or two that I would maybe have rethought. But you get lucky sometimes and sometimes the right person not only says yes and sometimes the right person says no. In other words, for some reason you've decided to go with somebody and you later realize, "Thank god that guy didn't do the movie because this guy is the right guy." But about Rob Pattinson, yeah, of course, if it weren't forTwilight I don't think we could have financed the movie around him because he wouldn't be known. But aside from that, that was a good thing not a bad thing and of course I have to think about all that.
Especially with a movie that's so focused on one character. Absolutely. You make a bad choice and you've killed your movie right away or at least you're staggering through it trying desperately to compensate for what's not there that should have been there. I felt really lucky to have Rob, he's fantastic, and I think people will see that it's obvious. I don't think it's going to be a surprise.
gothamist for the rest
xoxo
Carrie
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