David Cronenberg: What If Body Horror and Transformation is ‘a Good Thing?’

Cronenberg insists that there was “not a lot of thought” about the resonance of using one of his oldest titles for not just a new film but one that returns in many ways to the themes and imagery that established him as one of horror’s most potent and challenging filmmakers in the 1970s and ‘80s.

“I have to assume that most people who see this movie will not know about that movie,” he says. “But even if they do, they’ll see there are connections, because that movie was also legitimately called Crimes of the Future, but it was an extremely low-budget, underground film that I shot myself, edited myself, with non-professional actors and so on. So it’s a very different thing. And yet connected, no doubt.”

For Mortensen, starring in Crimes of the Future as Saul, whose own body seems to continually betray him, leaving the artist in a perpetual state of physical discomfort, also gave him the chance to work on a “classic” Cronenberg exercise after doing three films into more psychological drama territory: A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, and A Dangerous Method.

“It’s true, he’s sort of gone back to what he was doing before I met him 25, 30 years ago, but with new technology, and also with new, well-earned confidence as an artist,” says Mortensen. “He knows exactly what he wants. He’s editing as he’s making the movie, really. He’s very self-assured. Even when I read the script, it was like, ‘Okay, these are going to be some intense images.’ But that wasn’t the main thing that drew me to it. I liked the love story that’s at the heart of it, that there’s a surprising kind of tenderness, and something sweet and even funny at times about the story, in a strange way.”

For Léa Seydoux, who plays Saul’s partner Caprice, working with both Cronenberg and Mortensen for the first time was the kind of acting adventure that she had craved for a long time. “I really wanted to work with David but also with Viggo,” the No Time to Die star says. “I didn’t exactly know what it was going to be like, because David has such a specific way of telling stories, but I was drawn to the fact that I didn’t know what to expect. This is also the reason why I love doing this—to have new experiences and new emotions.”

Scott Speedman (Animal Kingdom) plays Lang Dotrice, a grieving father and underground activist leader who sees Saul’s mutations as the bleeding edge of a radical new turning point in human evolution.