Cronenberg and Olson were greeted by an enthusiastic round of applause as they took the stage following a screening of the film's trailer. This was Cronenberg's first visit to the annual event, and the reaction of the crowd appeared to have quite an impact on the critically acclaimed director.
Prior to taking the stage, I sat down with Cronenberg to discuss his film. "A History of Violence," loosely based on a graphic novel, follows Tom Stall (Mortensen), a happily married man who lives an ordinary, quiet, small town life with his lawyer wife (Bello) and two children.
One evening while Tom's going about his business serving food to the customers at his diner, a pair of drifters come in looking for trouble. Tom fights the two off, killing both men and setting off a chain of events that threatens to rip his family apart.
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID CRONENBERG:
Was it a conscious decision of yours to not strictly follow the graphic novel?
“No, it never came to that because it was a very odd circumstance that, maybe Josh [Olson, screenwriter] has talked about it, but I never knew there was a graphic novel involved so it wasn’t as though I approached this [as an adaptation]. It’s not like when I made ‘Naked Lunch’ where it was, in a way, an homage to William Burroughs and his work.
In this case I didn’t know that there was a graphic novel so I had no attachment to it. No investment in it. And, really, my investment was in Josh’s script. We had developed it to a certain point that it was going in a very interesting direction and we were both very comfortable with it, and that’s when I heard that there was a graphic novel. And I said, ‘Well, what graphic novel? And they said, ‘Oh you didn’t know?’
So then I looked at it and I saw that although the basic premise was obviously the same, it then took some turns and went in a very different direction from what we were doing. And with Josh, I guess it was conscience to go in a different direction. But for me it wasn’t. I was just following him and then developing it with him. So it had no effect on me, reading it.
I mean, really all it was was I was looking at it thinking, ‘Ok, maybe there’s something interesting in it that isn’t in the script that should be.’ But then I saw it was almost basically irrelevant to the script by that time. So there was no need to sort of make that choice.”
Why Viggo Mortensen? What made him right for this particular role?
“People propose lists and there were a lot of them because the project had been in development for some time, but without me. Everybody had an opinion about who should play what roles. And, in particular, there were some characters in Josh’s original script that I got rid of. So there were even characters cast that I didn’t even want in the movie. And Viggo was certainly on my short list.
He wasn’t the only one. Don’t forget we’re developing this script so the character does change. And as the character changes and as the dynamics change, it becomes clearer who would be good and what the tone of the [character is]. You know Viggo’s just, he’s just the perfect guy. I mean, not only as an actor but just where he is in his career and everything.
I started to do research, which I always do when actors are named and you start to look at DVDs and stuff that you have. Movies that you know they have done. Because obviously what he did in ‘Lord of the Rings,’ which is why he’s famous, has very little to do with his role in this movie. But other movies that he’s done, like one called ‘A Walk on the Moon’ with Diane Lane, has a lot to do with it because in that movie, he’s very gentle and sweet and tender. Usually he plays bad guys or scary guys, but I could see from that movie he could be very lovely as a gentle, sweet guy and very sexy as well. So it didn’t take long for him to sort of go on the top of the list.
But you know there are always things going on that are more political than just acting stuff. You know, was Viggo happy with New Line after ‘Lord of the Rings?’ You have to consider that. Is that an issue? Because it’s a New Line movie and so on and so on. And you have to find these things out and you have to talk to agents, and so on so…
It’s a weird [thing]. Casting is a real blind art. It’s a really weird, strange process and it takes a while for you to figure how it works. Inevitably what you want is that the actor seems like the only choice. You know, when you see the movie, you should feel like nobody else could have played that role. The actor wants that, you want that as a director. But in fact, before that actor’s cast, anybody could play that role. You know what I mean? Mentally you can plug in all kinds of people and see what you get.”
Page 2: Graphic Films, the Title, and Studio Projects
