A Film by David Cronenberg
A Focus Features Release
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New York
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FOCUS FEATURES Kyle Thorpe kyle.thorpe@focusfeatures.com Beth Pinker beth.pinker@focusfeatures.com Mike Jesson mike.jesson@focusfeatures.com (818) 777-7309 (818) 866-4588 (fax) Online FOCUS FEATURES Yannina Diaz yannina.diaz@focusfeatures.com (818) 777-5129 (818) 866-4602 (fax) |
 Viggo Mortensen |
 Viggo Mortensen & Naomi Watts |
 Viggo Mortensen & Naomi Watts |
 Arim Mueller-Stahl & Naomi Watts |
 Viggo Mortensen |
 Vincent Cassel |
 Naomi Watts |
 Scence |
 Vincet Cassel & Viggo Mortensen |
 Viggo Mortensen & Armin Mueller-Stahl |
 Viggo Mortensen & Naomi Watts |
 Vincet Cassel |
 Viggo Mortensen |
 Naomi Watts |
 Viggo Mortensen & Armin Mueller-Stahl |
 Vincet Cassel & Viggo Mortensen |
 Naomi Watts & Vincet Cassel |
 Naomi Watts & Viggo Mortensen |
 Naomi Watts |
 Naomi Watts |
 Sinèad, Jezy Skolimowski & Naomi Watts |
 David Cronenberg (Director) |
 David Cronenberg (Director) |
 David Cronenberg (Director), Vincet Cassel & Viggo Mortensen |
 Mina E. Mina, Vincent Cassel & Viggo Mortensen |
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Below are 6 clips from the film and another Trailer
Eastern Promises Trailer 2
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Eastern Promises Clip 2: READ THE DIARY
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Eastern Promises Clip 3: THE ADDRESS
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Eastern Promises Clip 4: HE OFFERED ME THE STARS
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Eastern Promises Clip 5: HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE
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Eastern Promises Clip 6: LEAVE ROOM NOW
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Synopsis
The new thriller reteaming acclaimed director David Cronenberg with his A History of Violence leading man Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises is written by Steve Knight (Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Dirty Pretty Things). As in the earlier film, director and star together explore the psyche, physicality, and fortunes of a man whose true nature may never be wholly revealed. The mysterious and charismatic Russian-born Nikolai Luzhin (Mr. Mortensen) is a driver for one of London's most notorious organized crime families of Eastern European origin. The family itself is part of the Vory V Zakone criminal brotherhood. Headed by Semyon (Academy Award nominee Armin Mueller-Stahl), whose courtly charm as the welcoming proprietor of the plush Trans-Siberian restaurant impeccably masks a cold and brutal core, the family's fortunes are tested by Semyon’s volatile son and enforcer, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), who is more tightly bound to Nikolai than to his own father. But Nikolai's carefully maintained existence is jarred once he crosses paths at Christmastime with Anna Khitrova (Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts), a midwife at a North London hospital. Anna is deeply affected by the desperate situation of a young teenager who dies while giving birth to a baby. Anna resolves to try to trace the baby’s lineage and relatives. The girl's personal diary also survives her; it is written in Russian, and Anna seeks answers in it. Anna's mother Helen (Sinèad Cusack) does not discourage her, but Anna's irascible Russian-born uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) urges caution. He is right to do so; by delving into the diary, Anna has accidentally unleashed the full fury of the Vory. With Semyon and Kirill closing ranks and Anna pressing her inquiries, Nikolai unexpectedly finds his loyalties divided. The family tightens its grip on him; who can, or should, he trust? Several lives - including his own - hang in the balance as a harrowing chain of murder, deceit, and retribution reverberates through the darkest corners of both the family and London itself.
About the Production
Genesis, Concept, Casting
Eastern Promises has been brought to the screen through a unique creative collaboration forged among a Canadian auteur, a British screenwriter, producers and crew from both countries as well as the U.S., and a leading man able to fully inhabit a complex character.
Even before director David Cronenberg and actor Viggo Mortensen had memorably teamed up for one of the most acclaimed films of 2005, A History of Violence, screenwriter Steve Knight was searching for a follow-up to what would later be made as his acclaimed first feature, Dirty Pretty Things. Knight knew that he wanted to keep writing about intriguing subject matter - and people and places in London that are often overlooked.
Knight reflects, "I wrote Dirty Pretty Things because I was interested in the stories of the 'other London' beneath the surface, the London of newly arrived immigrants. I felt it was an area that could be explored in more than one feature. Dirty Pretty Things was about an African and a Turk, and Eastern Promises is about another community and another experience."
Producer Paul Webster comments, "The London that has emerged in the last 20 years is a polyglot society. Eastern Promises is one of the first films to emphasize that. I saw it as a companion piece to Steve's earlier work, in that there is a thriller element in a part of London we don't know about."
Originally, Knight had been commissioned to write an hourlong telefilm script about Eastern European "people traffic." Using that trade as a point of origin (both geographically and character-wise), his narrative moved into exploring those who profit from it. This criminal brotherhood is the Vory V Zakone (pronounced "vor-ee sack-o-nee"), "which is a real organization," reveals Knight. It soon became apparent that the new script warranted feature film treatment.
Knight called on resources in London and New York to be able to meet with criminals in both cities, as well as the London police, the Russian-assigned desk in London's West End, and the FBI in the U.S.
Knight admits, "The reality is so bizarre and upsetting that I had to tone it down for the script. Slavery usually happens in normal suburban streets; you don't see it, yet it's going on around you." Similarly, it was a revelation to me how different Eastern nationalities - Russian, Chinese, and Turkish - all operate in unique ways while forging links with each other. The police have difficulty penetrating these underworlds, yet these groups who exist within London are almost self-policing in that they try not to cause too much antagonism outside their own group.
"The character of Semyon is based on a real-life restaurant owner in New York. The character of Anna was written as a tribute to the midwife who delivered my eldest son at London's Whittington Hospital" - which we later used to double as the exterior of the hospital location in the movie.
He elaborates, "The character of Anna was also my way of taking a conventional Londoner and leading her into this concealed world. Those two worlds don't often meet, let alone collide, so I came up with the emergency Caesarean section as a way to bring the midwife and an enslaved 14-year-old girl together in the thriller context."
"The sex-trafficking trade is a huge industry in the U.K.," reveals Webster. "Police records have shown that it is run predominantly by criminals of Eastern European descent."
Producers, and production companies, from Britain, Canada, and the U.S. joined forces to bring the script to the screen. Webster notes, "Steve tells accessible exciting stories, merging exotic elements into familiar environments. When I first read it in 2004, I felt the script was commercial, moving, exciting and castable. What we needed was a top director, which we finally got."
Cronenberg remembers reading the script and being "immediately sucked into this intense little world of the criminal subculture in London." In a sense, Steve has reinvented the crime movie, because the script accesses all the great parts of that genre while inverting and subverting them in an interesting way. It's not a retro movie; instead, it's very modern and intense.
"What I also found was that it offered a wonderful character study - particularly of Nikolai - and that I wanted to bring these characters to life."
Cronenberg began working with the screenwriter. Knight reports, "It was the perfect relationship between a writer and a director. David had a very clear vision, so we had a quite brief meeting and then I went off and did the work that we agreed needed to be done."
Producer Robert Lantos, head of Toronto-based Serendipity Point Pictures, had worked on two previous films with Cronenberg. The producer says, "David has a unique and magical gift. He creates a mesmerizing, hypnotic reality on-screen. Working with him is always a rewarding and memorable experience."
"It was David's passion for Eastern Promises that initially sparked my interest. Steve's powerful and timely screenplay, coupled with David's masterful craftsmanship, made for an irresistible combination." Lantos came aboard, and the film became a U.K./Canadian co-production, with the picture filmed on location in the U.K. and post-production completed in Canada.
There was only one actor considered for the lead role of conflicted Vory V Zakone foot soldier Nikolai Luzhin. Cronenberg muses, "When I worked with Viggo Mortensen on A History of Violence, I noted that he had a kind of Russian or Slavic look to him. He is in fact half-Danish. After our experience on A History of Violence, I wanted to work with him again. In reading the script, I immediately thought of him. Viggo is a brilliant actor, beyond what people realize, and I believe that with Eastern Promises, that is going to be more evident."
"His character this time is very precise and controlled, and highly cautious. Nikolai seems at first glance to be a thug, but he also has a softness, and is therefore strong and delicate at the same time."
"When we first meet Nikolai, he's almost dead inside," adds Knight. "He lives in a world of violence and as such is a violent person. But there is also a gentleness about him that comes as a surprise to Anna."
Mortensen says, "Nikolai is a man who has a lot of secrets. He came to London by way of the Ural mountain region, which is a kind of dividing mountain range a couple of time zones east of Moscow on the edge of the Siberian plain. He's seen a lot and, being close to Kirill, is on the front lines of the family's doings."
The actor's assessment of the character's history comes from an informed perspective; while preparing for the part, Mortensen spent weeks in Russia. He traveled to the Urals, among other places. He immersed himself in Russian culture, watching Russian movies and television, reading or re-reading the works of authors such as Vladimir Nabokov, listening to spoken-word tapes, and testing his knowledge of the language - which he had studied in advance of the trip. He also did research on the sex trafficking trade and the gangs that are based in the Ural area.
Knight marvels, "He went away and immersed himself in that world - and spent time with a lot of very disreputable Russian people! I wrote the lines, but the heart and soul of Nikolai is really from Viggo."
During the film shoot, Mortensen had with him artifacts that he had brought back from Russia, including worry beads made in prison from melted-down plastic cigarette lighters. He decorated his trailer with copies of Russian icons, and created an atmosphere conducive to maintaining his character.
Cronenberg reports, "He learned to speak Russian quite well for this role. He brings the intensity and humor and subtlety to Nikolai that he brings to every performance, all the while speaking with a Russian accent, so his voice has a different timbre than you've heard in his other movies. It's a complete transformation from the inside out. He played two characters, really, in A History of Violence, and I saw traces of neither one of them in his portrayal of Nikolai."
Says Webster, "Among actors, Viggo is completely unique in my experience because of his attention to detail; the research he did - months before we started to film - was incredible. He is an artist in his own right and brings an artist's sensibility to the process, as well as an actor's craft."
Mortensen says, "Being able to think about what I'd seen, by going to where the character was from, provides something real for scenes. I believe it's helpful to the other actors, too, if I'm convincing."
To play opposite Mortensen, the production needed an actress of comparable stature. In Naomi Watts, they found her. Cronenberg notes, "Naomi has such respect in the acting community; there's nobody who doesn't say she's a fantastic actress - as well as a total delight to work with. Both those things proved to be true. She's incredibly easy to direct because she just gets it right away on the most subtle level. I'm sure there's a lot of internal work that she does, but I never saw it. She would come to the set and nail it immediately. She gets the whole picture and accesses the inner life of the character. Of course, she's a great beauty and her beauty is so valuable for her as an actress because it's a down-to-earth, real beauty. It's not so exotic that it's hard for her to play a regular person. She can play a regular person and still glow.
"Anna is very vulnerable, and has had loss in her life which is still affecting her. She starts to connect with the Russian half of her roots - her late father had emigrated to England - in investigating where this young woman came from, what the diary means, and what will become of the orphaned baby. Because she's living a dreary English life, she's drawn into the intense lives of the Russian immigrants who live in London. Nikolai scares her, yet she has a desire to flirt with danger; it's her effort to scare herself back into the world. Naomi carries off all Anna's changes and modulations with such grace."
Watts, who had long sought to work with Cronenberg, found Knight's script to be "a page-turner, a really good thriller, and a window into a world that hasn't been seen much. Anna has long denied her Russian culture, and at the start of the film is in quite a sad place in her life. She's hiding behind her work and doesn't want to spend too much time with her family because they just remind her of her past traumas. But what I love is that there is still a sense of danger in her, and she comes alive again through meeting Nikolai - he's like the big bad wolf that intrigues her - and seeks to take control of the situation with the lost girl and orphaned baby. But it becomes clear that she's getting into a world that's much heavier than she can handle by herself, and she has to call on her family for help."
Webster remarks, "Anna’s journey for not only the girl and the baby but herself lends an emotional core to the story. Naomi mixes empathy with a touch of stubborn hardness, to the character, so that while you sense Anna getting out of her depth you also feel her determination not to be afraid."
Given the production's ties to the locale, Watts researched her role at Whittington Hospital. There, she witnessed a C-section and observed labor sessions with midwifes and birthing mothers. Watts states, "I was present at such powerful moments in another person’s life. It was earthy and beautiful and poetic. What midwives do is pretty extraordinary. It requires a huge amount of trust."
The leading lady also learned how to ride a Russian-made motorcycle. She laughs, "400 pounds of steel, and almost that many people standing by. There I was, riding through the streets of London; I couldn't believe it. But I came to like it and, I'm pleased to say, can now put it on my list of skills.
"Also, I'd never signed on to do a movie without at least talking to the director and hearing about his vision, but I did on Eastern Promises. Then, David and I kept planning to meet but we only finally did when I arrived in London. Very unusual, but with someone like David you don't panic, and when we did meet he instilled me with confidence."
French actor Vincent Cassel then signed on as the volatile Kirill. Cronenberg remarks, "Think of Kirill like Saddam Hussein's son; too much power, too little depth, and a lot of insecurities - a very dangerous combination. Unlike Nikolai, Kirill is passionate and emotional, so they're an odd couple."
Knight adds, "Kirill is like a firework going off. He's capable of great violence and great affection. His sheer energy and enthusiasm make him, in spite of everything he does, sympathetic." Cronenberg notes, "If you live long enough, you get to work with the people you admire and want to work with. I'd met with Vincent before about other projects, and I thought of him when I read the screenplay. He proved to be wonderful, bringing out all the wildness, ambivalence, liveliness, and desperation that Steve had wonderfully written.
"Vincent communicates external and internal chaos on-screen with great precision and control; he's a marvel to work with. I knew that his extreme looks and strong screen presence would allow him to match up well with Viggo."
Cassel, though eager to work with Cronenberg and Mortensen, wasn't sure he wanted to play "another villain. But I found this character to be multi-dimensional; Kirill is a victim of a very tough childhood. Yes, he's violent and dangerous, but at the same time it's touching because 'the family business' and a very dark father are all he knows. Kirill's relationship with Nikolai exists on so many different levels, including jealousy. The biggest challenge for me was to be believable as a Russian with the accent and the Russian language, which I worked hard at." Webster marvels, "It's amazing to watch Vincent go from the reprobate to the mewling child of a harsh father. He does that so very well and uncovers the pathos in Kirill. You see him reduced to little-boy status every time his dad comes onto the scene, especially given Armin Mueller-Stahl's effortless sense of command."
Cassel laughs, "Between scenes, Armin would glance over at me and say things like, 'My son...my son...' or 'Why are you like that?' So I would be the naughty son by doing things like moving Armin's belongings around. We enjoyed doing this to each other!"
Mueller-Stahl is making his first significant screen appearance in several years in Eastern Promises. "Armin is somebody that I've taken note of for years - fantastic voice, fantastic face," says Cronenberg. "His own life experience - being forced to leave East Germany - is all there in his countenance. Even before I met him, I sensed that there was an incredible sweetness to him but also an incredible power that could make you afraid at the same time. That was exactly what the role of Semyon required, because nobody is what he seems at the beginning of this movie.
"Armin took on not just the role, but also accepted the challenge of speaking English with a Russian accent; for a German, that is difficult. But he just rose to the occasion, working with dialect and dialogue coaches to make his accent was correct, just like the actors half his age in the cast were."
Mueller-Stahl muses, "It's a black piece of work, this story. Semyon is a very brutal man, and the world is full of those people. A monster is not visible, but is deep inside." The Vory stays secret because they are not visible. But it's very important to show both sides of these monsters. Semyon has a very warm sentimental relationship with his granddaughter, and the same attitude to Russian music. There's a certain tradition to playing a crime boss on-screen. Hopefully, I was able to do it my own way.
"On the set, David is friendly and also focused on the story, and on what needs to happen in a scene. When I met him the first time, I thought, 'What a nice man - and his films are so scary.'"
Cronenberg met Irish-born actress Sinèad Cusack several times over the years, having directed her husband Jeremy Irons in two films (Dead Ringers and M. Butterfly). Eastern Promises finally gave the filmmaker the opportunity to offer her a role. Cusack was "over the moon to be working with David. All his films are so layered and atmospheric. I found this script to be grown-up; the characters very well-drawn, and anyone who has been reading the newspapers in recent years is very aware of what is going on with this human trafficking from Russia."
The director notes, "I didn't want to cast Anna's mother as a grandmotherly; I wanted her to be an attractive intense woman in her own right, as Steve suggested in the script. These two women, living together in the shadow of a double tragedy - the death of Anna's Russian father and the death of her child - makes for an intense little household, especially when you throw in the proudly Russian Uncle Stepan."
Uncle Stepan is played by Jerzy Skolimowski, a filmmaker whom Cronenberg has long admired. Cronenberg reflects, "I was knocked out by the films Jerzy made in the Polish New Wave of the 1960s. During pre-production, I remembered that Jerzy had played a KGB agent in White Nights [1985] and that he was terrific in the role. We met up in London, and I was thrilled that he agreed to be in Eastern Promises.
"We ended up assembling an exciting and largely European cast. This was a particular thrill for me because the characters I do movies about tend not to be European. It was a whole new team to play with."
Lantos reports, "I was thrilled to collaborate on a film with actors of such towering talent; they are all at the peak of their form in Eastern Promises. No matter how many times I've seen this movie, there are scenes in which their performances take my breath away."
Cassel remarks, "Working with David is a pleasure. Being familiar with his work, I was confident that he'd be good with actors. Of course he is. There's a lot of freedom, but at the same time he's completely precise with the screenplay. He'll make the right joke at the right moment, but at the same time he's definitely the one in charge on the set."
Lantos adds, "He's always on schedule, always on budget, and always does what he says he will do - and extremely well. Working with David is effortless."
Skolimowski offers, "David is calmly sure of himself and at the same time, spreads a harmonious feeling on the set. Everything goes smoothly and rather fast. It's like film sets should be; my own, unfortunately not."
Russian Palette
While the cast, setting, and subject are indeed unique for a David Cronenberg film, the crew that convened to help bring the story to the screen is characterized by longtime creative collaborators whose associations with the director began years ago and are still going strong.
One of those core artisans, production designer Carol Spier, began work on Eastern Promises early. She made preliminary trips from Toronto to London in order to determine shooting exteriors and then ascertain how they would influence her design of the interiors.
Spier and Cronenberg have a long-established process of conferring on the backgrounds of the characters. For Eastern Promises, the concept for Spier's design was to show two worlds co-existing in London. Spier notes, "We contrast Anna's middle-class existence - the home where she lives with her mother and uncle, and the hospital where she works - with the more opulent crime world of Nikolai's 'family.'"
The exterior of Whittington Hospital was an easy enough match for the story's fictional hospital, but far more important was the Trans-Siberian restaurant; while the exterior is an empty building offering some visual texture and historical detail, Spier designed a lush interior. The upscale environment inside reflects both Semyon's affection for his culture as well as his ill-gotten gains.
To get better familiarized with Russian architecture, Spier spent a long weekend in St. Petersburg visiting restaurants and the Hermitage. She reports, "It was at the Hermitage where I saw the opulence and details of Catherine the Great's world. That became what Semyon was trying to put in his restaurant. I combined various elements and images, from lamps to paintings to moldings to pictures of food. Semyon didn't come from that world; he's trying very hard, so it's just a little bit off, with a little too much kitsch thrown in. It's whatever he thinks Catherine the Great might have done."
For the sequence revolving around an extended family holiday feast hosted by Semyon, food consultant Syvena Rowe, a specialist in Russian cuisine, was called in to prepare the meal. "It was like putting together a party," laughs Spier. "The opulent banquet scene is a departure for David, whose films are normally more spare."
The director notes, "This spread certainly was sumptuous. It put me in mind of the one in Fellini's Satyricon. Ours is not as opulent or decadent as that one, but while doing dolly shots past this fantastical food, I couldn't help thinking of it... Syvena is a Bulgarian woman who specializes in Eastern European cooking and has written books on it. We welcomed the authenticity that she provided because food is very symbolic and emblematic of 'the old country' still alive in London.
"That was called for in Steve's script. But when we first went looking for this subculture, we couldn't find it because it's not quite as cohesive as he has written it. As we started to do research, that subculture did rise close to the surface. It turns out that there are at least 10 very good Russian restaurants in London, though they're not easy to find. Once we did, they in turn helped us locate Russians, Ukrainians, Albanians...the Soviet diaspora in London, basically, for extras work. We also found them through the Russian Orthodox Church."
Cronenberg's longtime costume designer Denise Cronenberg (who is his sister) examined dozens of photos of Russians, from prostitutes to waiters. While visiting Russian restaurants, she noted that turtlenecks and black leather were prevalent. "Black denotes power," explains Denise Cronenberg. "We had Russian extras who came on the set, and they would be wearing black leather and we would take theirs off and put ours on because ours had a specific look. The Russian emigres that I met told me that I was just like a Russian, because I paid in cash!... For the feast sequence, I dressed the Russian guests elegantly, but added over-the-top jewelry.
"On the opposite end of the spectrum, Anna is not really thinking that much about what she wears because she has so much else on her mind. So the concept was to dress Naomi Watts very simply and have her wear the same clothes over and over. When not on duty in her hospital uniform, she mainly wears jeans and a waxed-cotton jacket - which is her other uniform, for riding her motorcycle.
Denise Cronenberg adds, "As Nikolai, Viggo Mortensen needed to be intimidating, yet there was a limitation because technically he is a chauffeur for the family. So the trick was to dress him in a suit and tie, dress shirt, coat and gloves, and smart sunglasses, all of which had convey that there is more to him. He would just absorb the character when he put the clothes on – even the shoes helped him get into it."
"Vincent Cassel as Kirill was the most difficult to costume, and ended up in black leather for most of the film. He dresses to show that he has money, but the black leather indicates his Russian background. We made his coats, because I couldn't find what I wanted."
Spier notes, "Color palette is key on just about every film I do with David. In Anna's world, everything is simple and not colorful. You could say we did it as beige while not exactly being beige. With the crime family, it's garishly opulent and also darker."
As is customary on a David Cronenberg movie, Spier coordinated efforts with Denise Cronenberg. The latter says, "We compared research that we'd assembled. David trusts Carol and I to coordinate on a look because we know what he would or wouldn't like."
In addition to Spier and Denise Cronenberg, other key collaborators together again with David Cronenberg on Eastern Promises include cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, editor Ronald Sanders, Academy Award-winning make-up designer Stephan Dupuis, and Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore.
Robert Lantos reveals, "David's brilliant nucleus of distinguished craftspeople will turn down all other offers whenever he makes a movie; their loyalty to him is a fantastic asset for a film and its producers."
Suschitzky notes, "The fact that we all know each other helps cut through a lot of the inessentials that go on in a production. We know what we're each capable of doing, and that makes it a lot easier."
Tattoo You
"Once Viggo Mortensen decides to take on a role, he's completely into it and the greatest collaborator you can have," remarks David Cronenberg.
Naomi Watts adds, "Working with him was extraordinary. He was so into his character that I could tell he was upset to leave Nikolai behind!"
Paul Webster reveals, "Viggo's one-man research engine helped mold David's thinking about the script - and fed into the script in a great way. It informed our whole process."
Particularly helpful to all, for an important story and visual element of Eastern Promises, was Alix Lambert's documentary The Mark of Cain, which she had filmed in Russian prisons; Mortensen studied her book (among others) on the same subject, namely, criminal tattoos.
This facet of Mortensen's research became "a key pivot point for our approach to refining the script with Steve," notes Cronenberg. "Viggo sent me books on Russian criminal tattoos which were filled with not just photos and diagrams but also texts about the meanings of tattoos. He also sent me The Mark of Cain. There's this whole hidden world of symbolism that is immediately fascinating."
Cronenberg in turn sent the books and the documentary to Knight, who incorporated the tattoo elements into the screenplay. Cronenberg says, "Tattoos suddenly became an intense metaphor and symbol in the movie. It's a specialized world that is in fact dying because of the changes that have happened in Russia in the last decade.
"The tattoos are tied to an older Russian criminal caste with a real structure and hierarchy - the Vory V Zakone, which is literally translated as 'Thieves in law.' It's a brotherhood of thieves. The old saying goes, 'There is no honor among thieves,' but what we found out was that the Vory has, if not honor, than at least a code that is adhered to - and it's a very brutal one."
The director clarifies that "this really is quite different from the Mafia. Also, in the modern Russian world, or the diaspora in London, it's morphing into something quite different, which is what we wanted to explore in Eastern Promises."
Vory V Zakone members include Russians and Georgians, and a smattering of Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Abkhazians, and - in the movie, at least - Turks. The Vory were born organically in Russia during the Great Terror of the 1930s, when Josef Stalin and his henchmen purged the Bolshevik Party of "enemies of the people" and sent millions to the Gulag slave labor camps in Siberia. It was in these camps that the first Vory were formed, along with the code that dictates law among Russian gangsters. The code calls for "complete submission to the laws of criminal life, including obligations to support the criminal ideal, and rejection of labor and political activities." The Vory also organized their own tribunals to pass judgment on code violations and disputes. The penalty for violation of the code is often mutilation or death.
The Vory strengthened their ranks in the 1970s, during Leonid Brezhnev's rule, as the Soviet economy began to stagnate and the black market for luxury goods thrived. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the Vory further consolidated power in Russia, while also fanning out around the globe, particularly into Western Europe and the United States.
Today, many Vory live well far from their home country. Estimates place them as operating in several dozen different countries, with thousands of members. The rigid code and behavioral rules, however, remain in place. The Vory’s criminal aristocracy continues to oversee a recruitment system that, like 70 years ago, is concentrated in the prisons.
"The criminals in Russian jails say that your tattoo is your life," says Cronenberg. "Your tattoos on your body are who you are. If you come in with no tattoos, you don't exist. They must be accurate; they tell what crimes you've committed, what jail time you've served, what your sexual orientation is, and more. If you were to have a tattoo that says you are higher up in the crime world than you are, you would be seriously punished, if not killed. It is said that tattoos are one's passport, but it's a very obscure country that the passport is from; the Russian criminal life is a rather small world. So the tattoos you've branded yourself with are determining your own fate, and are also your private passport to your private world."
Knight adds, "They communicate through the tattoos. Basically, these people have their curriculum vitae on their body, their career history. With Nikolai, the question is, are these only on his skin? It's what he's done, but is it who he is?"
Many tattoos are applied in prison. In these circumstances, to make the ink for the tattoos, prisoners break off the heel of a boot or a shoe and burn it. This yields soot that is sifted through a handkerchief and combined with urine to produce a durable ink. The tattoo is applied with a sharpened guitar string threaded through a wind-up shaver, while a grafted pen cap serves as the ink well.
Charged with making it somewhat easier on all concerned for the tattoo sequence and shots in Eastern Promises, Carol Spier created a tattoo tool based on her staff's research at the Oxford Tattoo Museum. However, hers was designed to not pierce the skin.
The stars being tattooed on Nikolai's knees in the key Vory sequence convey that he will never have to kneel down before authority, as he is raised to the highest rank in the brotherhood. It took one member of Stephan Dupuis's staff 4 hours to apply 43 tattoos on Mortensen for the full-body tattoo sequence. The tattoos, which were transfers, ranged from fingernail-sized to one which covered most of the actor's back. Several encircled his wrists, ankles, and fingers.
Keeping it all in the film family, as opposed to the crime family, Russian dialect coach Olegar Fedoro did double duty by appearing on-screen as the tattooist who works on Nikolai. "Viggo's body was a canvas for me," he reports. "Instead of a brush, I was using a little electric machine."
Among the 43 tattoos are Skull With Flowers, Smoking Skull, Tiger, Star, Virgin Mary with Child, Woman with Knife, Snake & Dagger, Scorpion, Sailing Ship, Naked Angel on a Wheel, Jesus, Grim Reaper, Hot Cross Button, Coppolas, Epaulettes, Crow, Cross, Cat with Pipe, Candelabra, Button, Barbed Wire, Ankle Chain, and the 7 assorted Finger Tattoos. 12 of the tattoos are Russian sayings.
Mortensen notes, "Some of the tattoos were humorous, and some were quite poetic. On the instep of my right foot, one said 'Where are you going?' On the instep of the other foot, another said, 'What the hell do you care?' One of my favorites said, 'Let all I have lived be as if it were a dream,' which is so beautiful and sad. Another said, 'I'm a slave to fate but no lackey to the law,' which translates to, 'I'll accept my lot in life without complaining, but don't expect me to show you any respect or listen to anything you say; I don't care how hard you hit me.'
"These tattoos tied in with the so-called honorable thief who has a complete lack of respect for authority, no matter where it's coming from. There is, in the Vory, a respect for those who don't respect authority. As crude as they can be, there is real attention to history and imagery. For example, the Ankle Chain ones refer back to the time of Peter the Great, when prisoners were commonly shackled by the ankles. The crucifix on my chest denotes that I am a thief in good standing; it has nothing to do with religion. The three church domes on my back represent three different prison sentences, while the St. Petersburg cross on my finger is a symbol for having been in a prison there."
Mortensen's in-character tattoos for Nikolai were so authentic-looking that when the actor visited a Russian restaurant, diners fell silent, thinking that a top Vory had entered. However, once he spoke English, many visibly relaxed...
...although, reveals Armin Mueller-Stahl, "I was told that some of them actually left."
Another London
The recent polonium poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko brought world attention to the number of wealthy Russians now making their homes in London. In fact, during production of Eastern Promises, David Cronenberg and Vincent Cassel's temporary homes were mere steps away from where traces of the poison were found as part of the investigation into Litvinenko's death.
But, in the immigrant tradition, the Russian subculture in London hasn't seen the vast majority of its denizens settle into expensive centrally located residences. Instead, they have gravitated towards less expensive places on the outskirts of the city. Undiscovered by tourists, these communities have their own textures and history.
As such, the production followed the screenplay's lead by not shooting in the traditional London locales that are familiar on-screen. Cronenberg emphasizes, "We shot in places where the immigrants live, like in the East End. It brought us texture."
"Russia itself is not in great shape. So we captured locations in London with a sense of decay, which I'm partial to anyway. We tried to show where you could see the weight of the ages, which connects with Russia. There is a historical sense of a Russian past that flows through all the Russian characters, and a traditional Russian sadness and cynicism. That has not disappeared with modern Russia, although it's mutated a bit."
The director elaborates, "Viggo Mortensen and I were both reading Dostoevsky - as it turned out, the same book; Demons, a.k.a. The Possessed. Much of what's written by that author permeated his portrayal of Nikolai. The combination of the texture of his voice and his face with the weathered streets and the dilapidated interiors gave us a strongly authentic foundation. With Carol Spier's production design and the night shooting as lit by Peter Suschitzky's camera, I felt we were able to get on-screen aspects of a film noir."
Eastern Promises shot its interior sequences on sets built at 3 Mills Studios in East London. 3 Mills is a converted gin distillery. But the production was also frequently on the move, filming at different locations throughout the U.K. These included Kilburn, where an anonymous suburban setting doubled as a brothel; Woolwich, Greenwich, Southwark, Brompton Cemetery, Cannon Street, a Hackney housing estate, and Harlesden.
Paul Webster remarks, "Harlesden is considered such a dangerous place that twenty security guards were on duty the night we were there, as well as four police officers; normally there would be four security guards and one police officer. So as not to attract attention, our production vehicles were hidden behind shops."
A safer location was Deptford, an area which traces its history dating back to the Middle Ages, and where Henry VIII built his Tudor fleet by the Thames in the 16th Century. There, the production filmed a body being dumped. As the Thames is a tidal river, rising between 10-12 yards as the tide ebbs and flows, the production had to time this scene with precision. The scene had to be shot when the tide was at its highest, and completed before the river ebbed, revealing mud flats.
The Thames Barrier, in the lower part of the tidal Thames, was used for where a body washes up. The Barrier is a series of ten separate movable gates positioned end-to-end 520 yards across the river to control floodwaters and stem the tide.
The only real tourist destination that the production filmed at was the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the 18th Century. However, Sir Christopher's beautiful columned buildings will not be seen on-screen; the location was selected for its kitchen, which doubled for the Trans-Siberian restaurant kitchen.
When not playing scenes in the kitchen, Armin Mueller-Stahl took the opportunity to see the city. "London is very, very exciting," he enthuses. "Also, I'm a painter myself, so I went to see Cezanne and Hockney works at the museums."
Webster comments, "Eastern Promises should offer a real sense of what London is these days; a multicultural cosmopolitan city. Everywhere you turn, there is the old bumping up against the new, which is so appropriate for our story."
Knight adds, "There are hundreds of different languages spoken in our city, and there are several different languages spoken in our film. The variety of locations reflect that, and also show the diversity of London life, the way it is now."
To ensure that words were being pronounced and/or with an accurate accent, three dialogue/dialect coaches were employed by the production. On the set, the trio all listened intently through their earphones during each take.
Russian dialect coach Olegar Fedoro checked authenticity constantly and monitored Mortensen closely. Fedoro says, "My goal was that when people in Moscow see this film, they say, 'I didn’t know he was Russian.' We began preparing when Viggo came back from Russia, where he was very inspired. He's a stronger linguist than most actors."
While dialogue coach Andrew Jack also advised on the Russian accents, he mostly concentrated on making sure that actors spoke English with an appropriate Eastern European accent. Extra effort was required by and with Vincent Cassel (who is French) and Mueller-Stahl (who grew up in East Berlin) in particular. Even Naomi Watts's English accent had to be refined, since the English-born actress was raised in Australia.
Rounding out the linguistic chaperones was Esin Harvey, who was a Turkish dialogue advisor. She worked with the actors who play members of the rival crime family, seen initially in the opening sequence and later figuring into the plot.
Jack explains, "We had to make a demarcation on this particular movie as to who was dealing with dialect and who was dealing with dialogue. Olegar and Esin dealt more with language. We all aimed for a lot of subtleties that kept these characters believable."
Promises Kept
David Cronenberg sees the finished film as "a mob crime thriller intricately interwoven with familial dramas - all unfolding in a subculture that dwells within another very strong culture."
Paul Webster notes, "The emotional triangle between Anna, Nikolai, and Kirill intrigued me in Steve Knight's script, and even more so with what our actors brought to it. David also caught all the drama of a man who is willing to sacrifice everything for his work, and the pressures that brings; Viggo Mortensen's character makes a kind of Faustian bargain. From these diverse elements, David mines all dramatic and thriller excitement."
Mortensen offers, "I consider myself very fortunate to have done two movies in a row with David. I think that with this movie, we explored language a little more, whereas in A History of Violence it was gesture that took precedence."
"Eastern Promises is a logical follow-up to A History of Violence; there are identity issues, explorations of the traditional family structure, people dealing with perilous situations and moral dilemmas, and the question 'Is violence ever justified?'"
About the Cast
VIGGO MORTENSEN (Nikolai)
Viggo Mortensen previously starred for Eastern Promises director David Cronenberg in A History of Violence.
Since his screen debut in Peter Weir's award-winning Witness, Mr. Mortensen's film career has encompassed diverse portrayals in over three dozen features.
With his fellow actors from Peter Jackson's Academy Award-winning The Lord of the Rings epic trilogy, he shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, among other honors.
Mr. Mortensen's other films include Sean Penn's The Indian Runner (opposite David Morse and Patricia Arquette); Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way (with Al Pacino); Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady (opposite Nicole Kidman); Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane (with Demi Moore); Tony Goldwyn's A Walk on the Moon (opposite Diane Lane); Augustin Diaz Yanes's Alatriste; and Vicente Amorim's upcoming Good.
The native New Yorker spent several years living in Venezuela, Argentina, and Denmark before beginning his acting career back in NYC. There, he studied with Warren Robertson and acted in plays while also beginning to work in movies.
Mr. Mortensen is also an accomplished poet, photographer, and painter. In 2002, he founded Perceval Press, an independent publishing house specializing in art, poetry, and critical writing. Perceval's mission is to publish texts, images, and recordings by artists that might not otherwise be presented.
He recently exhibited the photographic series "The Nature of Landscape and Independent Perception" with George Guani at the Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica, where he had twice shown mixed media previously, in 1999 and 2002. In 2008, he will have photographic and painting exhibitions in Iceland and Denmark. His past shows include "Miyelo," at both the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles and the Addison Ripley Gallery in Washington, D.C. Mr. Mortensen has also shown his work at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York City; as well as in Cuba, New Zealand, and Denmark.
NAOMI WATTS (Anna)
Naomi Watts's performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (also for Focus Features) brought her Academy Award as well as BAFTA, Critics's Choice, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, among other honors. Following the film's world premiere at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival, she received the Audience Award (Lion of the Public) for Best Actress.
She earlier earned global acclaim for her double role in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which world-premiered at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival. The portrayal earned her Best Actress awards from a number of critics groups, including the National Society of Film Critics and the Chicago Film Critics Association. She was named the Female Star of Tomorrow at the ShoWest film industry honors, received the Hollywood Discovery Award for Breakthrough Acting at the Hollywood Film Festival, and won the Breakthrough Actress award from the National Board of Review.
Ms. Watts's other films include Peter Jackson's King Kong, for which she was named Actress of the Year by the London Film Critics Circle; Gore Verbinski's The Ring; Merchant Ivory's Le Divorce; John Curran's We Don’t Live Here Anymore and The Painted Veil, which she also produced and co-produced, respectively; Niels Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon (again starring opposite her fellow 21 Grams actor, Sean Penn); David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees; and Michael Haneke's soon-to-be-released Funny Games, which she also executive-produced.
Born in England, Ms. Watts moved to Australia at the age of 14. Her first major film role came in John Duigan's Flirting.
She produced and starred in the short film Ellie Parker, which screened at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, and reteamed in those same capacities with writer/director Scott Coffey for a feature expansion that debuted at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
VINCENT CASSEL (Kirill)
One of France's most prominent and prolific actors (whose father, the late Jean-Pierre Cassel, was another), Vincent Cassel was born and raised in Paris.
He began his career at age 17, as a ballet dancer and student at The Fratellini Circus School. After a period of street acting, his admiration for the American cinema of the 1970s led him to the Actor's Institute in New York City. There, he continued his training as a dancer and also as an actor. At age 20, he returned to France and began working in classical theater, under legendary director Jean-Louis Barrault.
Mr. Cassel's breakthrough film debuted at the 1995 Cannes International Film Festival; his work in La Haîne [a.k.a. Hate] (for writer/director Mathieu Kassovitz, whom he had previously starred for in Mètisse [a.k.a. Cafè au Lait]) would later earn him the first-ever double Cèsar Award nominations as both Best Actor and Most Promising Actor.
He was soon starring in films in France and around the world. Among them have been Jan Kounen's Dobermann and Blueberry; Christophe Gans's Le Pacte des loups [a.k.a. Brotherhood of the Wolf]; Gilles Mimouni's award-winning L'Appartement; Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth, opposite Cate Blanchett; Mathieu Kassovitz' Les Rivières pourpres[The Crimson Rivers]; one of the most talked-about films of recent years, Gaspar Noè's Irrèversible; Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson's Shrek (in voiceover); Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen; and Jacques Audiard's Sur mes lèvres [a.k.a. Read My Lips], for which he received Best Actor nominations from both the Cèsar and European Film Awards.
Mr. Cassel heads his own production company, 120 FILMS, which recently produced rising filmmaker Kim Chapiron's Sheitan [a.k.a. Satan], in which he starred.
He recently filmed Jean-Jacques Annaud's Sa majèste Minor; and is currently at work starring in two films on the life and times of famed French criminal Jacques Mesrine, both being directed by Jean-François Rìchet. The first film, costarring Cècile de France and Gèrard Depardieu, is titled The Death Instinct; the second, costarring Ludivine Sagnier and Gèrard Lanvin, is titled Public Enemy #1.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL (Semyon)
For his performance in Scott Hicks's Shine, Armin Mueller-Stahl was an Academy Award nominee as well as (with his fellow actors from the film) a Screen Actors Guild Award nominee.
Mr. Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, and raised in East Berlin. He is an actor, musician, painter, writer, and director. Following his studies, he made his theatrical debut in 1952, performing in classical plays at Berlin's Volksbühne. He then began working in television and film, making his screen debut in Gustav von Wangenheim's Heimliche Ehen.
He starred in several features for Frank Beyer, among them Jacob the Liar (1975), Five Cartridges, and Royal Children; and earned critical acclaim for his portrayals in Egon Günther's The Third and Roland Gräf's The Flight.
After moving to West Berlin in 1979, Mr. Mueller-Stahl starred for Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Lola and Veronika Voss; in Niklaus Schilling's Der Westen leuchtet; and won the Best Actor Award at the 1985 Montrèal World Film Festival for his work in Agnieszka Holland's Angry Harvest.
His many other films include Patrice Chè'reau's L'Homme blessè; Istvàn Szabò's Colonel Redl; Costa-Gavras's Music Box; Barry Levinson's Avalon; George Sluizer's Utz, for which he was named Best Actor at the 1992 Berlin International Film Festival; Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth; Steven Soderbergh's Kafka; Rob Bowman's The X Files; Peter Kassovitz' Jakob the Liar (1999); Agnieszka Holland's The Third Miracle; and Conversation with the Beast, which he directed, co-wrote, and starred in as Adolf Hitler. Reuniting with Eastern Promises leading lady Naomi Watts, he next begins work on Tom Tykwer's The International, starring Clive Owen.
Mr. Mueller-Stahl has published Drehtage (1991), a reflection of his life and work; Unterwegs nach Hause (1996); In Gedanken an Marie Louise (1998); the short story Hannah (2004); the novella Venice (2005), containing diary entries and sketches; and, in 2006, Armin Mueller-Stahl Portraits: Painting and Drawing.
At the 2007 Lolas, Germany's equivalent of the Oscars, he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
SINÈAD CUSACK (Helen)
Irish-born Sinèad Cusack made her feature film debut in Clive Donner's Alfred the Great, starring David Hemmings, and followed it with the starring role alongside Peter Sellers in Alvin Rakoff's Hoffman.
She began her acting career at the famed Abbey Theatre in Dublin. She subsequently made a name for herself on the London stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), playing Lady Macbeth in Macbeth; Katerina in The Taming of the Shrew; and Portia in The Merchant of Venice. She later starred on Broadway as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, which earned her a Tony Award nomination, and Cyrano de Bergerac, both of which were also RSC stagings.
In 1990, Ms. Cusack starred on London's West End in an acclaimed revival of Chekhov's Three Sisters, with her father, noted actor Cyril Cusack, as well as her sisters Sorcha and Niamh. In 1998, she won Best Actress awards from both The Evening Standard and the London Critics Circle for her role in Our Lady of Sligo, which she later starred in off-Broadway. More recently, she has starred in the RSC's Antony and Cleopatra; A Lie of the Mind; The Mercy Seat; and Tom Stoppard's award-winning play, Rock'n'Roll, which earned her an Evening Standard Theatre Award nomination. She will again star in the show, this time on Broadway, in the fall of 2007.
Her other films include Stephen Gyllenhaal's Waterland and Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty, both with her husband Jeremy Irons; Marty Feldman's The Last Remake of Beau Geste; Daniel Petrie's Rocket Gibraltar; Les Blair's Bad Behaviour; Andrew Birkin's The Cement Garden; James McTeigue's V for Vendetta; and John Boorman's The Tiger's Tail, for which she was an Irish Film and Television (IFTA) Award nominee.
Ms. Cusack's many U.K. television credits include Paul Seed's miniseries Have Your Cake and Eat It, for which won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Actress.
JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI (Stepan)
Jerzy Skolimowski is the Polish-born director, writer, painter, and actor. Since graduating from the country's prestigious Film School in Lòd&zgrave, he has directed more than 20 films.
At college, he took up boxing, which also became the subject of a 1961 feature he directed; and an onscreen sport for him in Andrzej Wajda's Innocent Sorcerers, which he also co-wrote. He also wrote and published several books of poems, short stories, and a play before working on screenplays, including Roman Polanski's 1962 classic Knife in the Water.
Following his early documentaries and short films, feature films that Mr. Skolimowski has directed and/or written include Moonlighting, starring Jeremy Irons, for which he was honored with the Best Screenplay award at the 1982 Cannes International Film Festival; Le Dèpart, starring Jean-Pierre Lèaud, which won the Golden Bear Award at the 1967 Berlin International Film Festival; Deep End, starring Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown; King, Queen, Knave, starring David Niven and Gina Lollobrigida; Success is the Best Revenge, starring Michael York; The Shout, starring Alan Bates and Susannah York, which won the Grand Prix at the 1978 Cannes International Film Festival; and The Lightship, starring Robert Duvall and Klaus Maria Brandauer, which won a Special Jury Prize at the 1985 Venice International Film Festival, as well as the Best Actor award for Mr. Duvall.
While he has appeared in some of his own films, he has also acted for other filmmakers. Among his notable movies as actor have been Taylor Hackford's White Nights; Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!; and Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls.
Mr. Skolimowski's paintings have been exhibited across Europe and in the United States, and he has taken part in the Venice Biennale His work has been acquired by contemporary art museums in Poland and Greece; and by private collectors in the U.S., the U.K., France, Italy, among other countries.
About the Filmmakers
DAVID CRONENBERG (Director)
David Cronenberg's body of work includes the following films as screenwriter and director; Shivers, Rabid, Fast Company, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, and eXistenZ. The films he has directed from screenplays by other writers are The Dead Zone, M. Butterfly, Spider, A History of Violence (which he also produced), and now Eastern Promises.
The Toronto native's films have won him awards and recognition worldwide. In June 2001, he received an Honorary Doctor of Law Degree from the University of Toronto. In 1990, France bestowed upon him the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, and then in 1997 the Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2005, he was named a GQ "Man of the Year"; received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award at the Palm Springs Film Festival; was given the Billy Wilder Award by the National Board of Review; and was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Stockholm Film Festival. In July 2006, he guest-curated the exhibition "Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, 1962-1964" for the Art Gallery of Toronto.
Retrospectives of Mr. Cronenberg's work have been held in Japan, the U.S., the U.K., France, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, and Canada. Books on him and his films include The Shape of Rage – the Films of David Cronenberg, The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg, Cronenberg on Cronenberg, and a collection of interviews published by Cahiers du Cinema.
He studied at the University of Toronto, where he became interested in film and made two 16mm shorts, Transfer and From the Drain. His first films in 35mm were Stereo and Crimes of the Future, both shot in the late 1960s. In those works, he established and explored some of the themes and concerns that would characterize and define much of his later work – including violence and sexuality, reality and altered reality, and social satire and biological horror.
Mr. Cronenberg's first commercial feature was 1975's Shivers (a.k.a. They Came From Within or The Parasite Murders), which became one of the fastest-recouping movies in the history of Canadian film. Within a decade, he was making more ambitious films, such as Videodrome and The Dead Zone, for major studios. The latter won three out of the five prizes at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival as well as seven Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations.
His next films were The Fly, a remake of the 1958 horror classic, which won the Academy Award for Best Makeup; and Dead Ringers, starring Jeremy Irons, which earned Mr. Cronenberg the Best Director award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
Mr. Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (adapted and reconceived from William S. Burroughs's novel and works) brought him the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Director, as well as that group and the New York Film Critics Circle's citations for Best Screenplay. The film also won eight Genie Awards [Canada's equivalent of the Academy Award], including Best Picture and Best Director.
Among his more recent films, Crash brought him a Special Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes International Film Festival, in addition to multiple Genie Awards; eXistenZ won the Silver Bear Award at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival; and A History of Violence, starring his Eastern Promises leading man Viggo Mortensen, received a host of accolades, including Best Director and Best Film on the Village Voice Film Critics Poll as well as two Academy Award nominations.
Among his recent short films are Camera and At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World. The latter was made for the Chacun son cinema collection of films commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Cannes International Film Festival.
Mr. Cronenberg starred in the latter short, but has also acted in a number of films for other directors as a way to reconnect with being part of a film shoot after the isolation of writing screenplays. His films as actor include Gus Van Sant's To Die For, Clive Barker's Nightbreed, and Don McKellar's Last Night.
In 2008, he will be directing a new opera based on his film The Fly, at Paris's Thèâtre du Châtelet and the Los Angeles Opera. Howard Shore is composing the music, and David Henry Hwang is writing the libretto.
STEVE KNIGHT (Screenplay)
Steve Knight's first screenplay, Dirty Pretty Things, was made into a film directed by Stephen Frears. Upon its premiere at the 2002 Venice International Film Festival, the film attracted critical acclaim from around the world. A host of prestigious awards followed, including four British Independent Film Awards (among them Best Screenplay); and Best Film and Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) prizes at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. Mr. Knight was also honored with the Humanitas Prize; the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay; the Best British Screenwriter citation at the London Film Critics Circle; and Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and WGA Award nominations.
The Birmingham, England native attended University College London, where he studied English Literature. Upon graduation, he worked as a copywriter/producer for a Birmingham advertising agency and then as a copywriter/producer at Capital Radio.
In 1988, Mr. Knight and Mike Whitehill started a freelance writing partnership providing material for television. Based at Celador Productions, they wrote for Commercial Breakdown and The Detectives, among other programs.
Mr. Knight co-created, and Celador produced, the television series Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The program has won awards around the globe - including a BAFTA Award, National Television Award, Silver Rose of Montreux, and the Queen's Award for Enterprise - and a worldwide following.
He has had three novels published; The Movie House, which won the WH Smith Fresh Talent Award, Alphabet City, and Out of the Blue. Alphabet City is slated for a film adaptation.
Mr. Knight's first stage play, The President of an Empty Room, was directed by Howard Davies and staged at London’s National Theatre in 2005. He is currently working on a second play.
His most recent screenplay, Amazing Grace, was directed by Michael Apted and starred Ioan Gruffudd as the British anti-slavery activist and politician William Wilberforce. The script earned him a Humanitas Prize nomination.
Mr. Knight is currently at work adapting, for Focus Features and Random House Films, a feature based on Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Bob Drogin's nonfiction book Curveball, named after the code name for the Iraqi informant whose deceptive information about biological weapons was used by the U.S. government to justify the war in Iraq.
PAUL WEBSTER (Producer)
Paul Webster is an independent film producer based in London. In 2004, he launched the feature film division of Kudos Film & Television Ltd., one of Britain's premier television production companies, founded by joint managing directors Jane Featherstone and Stephen Garrett.
Eastern Promises is the first project for the new division to reach movie screens. Since its inception in 1992, Kudos has produced such notable projects as the hit caper series Hustle; the BAFTA Award-nominated cop fantasy series Life on Mars; Paul Lynch's International Emmy Award-winning The Magician's House; Grant Gee's Grammy Award-nominated feature documentary on Radiohead, Meeting People is Easy; and the BAFTA Award-winning spy drama series Spooks (titled MI-5 in the U.S.), which gave Matthew Macfadyen his breakout role.
Mr. Webster worked with the latter actor as producer of the award-winning Focus Features release Pride & Prejudice, starring Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley. Reuniting with the latter actress as well as Focus, director Joe Wright, and production company Working Title Films, Mr. Webster recently produced Atonement. That highly anticipated film, which also stars James McAvoy and Romola Garai, will be released in the fall of 2007.
Also for Focus Features, Mr. Webster is executive-producing Kudos's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams and directed by Bharat Nalluri, whose most recent credit was Kudos's miniseries Tsunami: The Aftermath. That film is currently in post-production for a 2008 release. Rounding out the current Kudos slate of features in production under Mr. Webster is the documentary The Crimson Wing, co-directed by Matthew Aeberhard and Leander Ward, for Walt Disney Pictures.
Mr. Webster was executive producer of Walter Salles's award-winning The Motorcycle Diaries (also a Focus release).
As the creator and head of FilmFour, the feature film arm of the U.K.'s Channel Four, he oversaw a slate of original productions from 1998 through 2002 that included such movies as Gregor Jordan's Buffalo Soldiers; Jez Butterworth's Birthday Girl; Gillian Armstrong's Charlotte Gray; and Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast (for which Sir Ben Kingsley received an Academy Award nomination).
Prior to forming FilmFour, Mr. Webster was head of production at Miramax Films for over two years. In that capacity, he supervised such Academy Award-winning films as Anthony Minghella's The English Patient, Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, and John Madden's Shakespeare in Love.
He had previously worked as a producer, both independently and with Working Title Films, during which time he produced such films as Mel Smith's The Tall Guy; Peter Medak's Romeo is Bleeding; and James Gray's Little Odessa, which won the Silver Lion Award at the 1994 Venice International Film Festival. He subsequently reteamed with the latter filmmaker as producer of The Yards.
Prior to segueing into his producing career, he ran Palace Pictures, the theatrical distribution arm of the U.K. production company Palace. Mr. Webster began working in the film industry in the mid-1970s, clerking at the (Notting Hill) Gate cinema.
ROBERT LANTOS (Producer)
Eastern Promises marks producer Robert Lantos's third collaboration with director David Cronenberg, following Crash (winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival) and eXistenZ (winner of a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival).
The producer's other new film, Fugitive Pieces, from director Jeremy Podeswa, is the Opening Night Gala at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.
Mr. Lantos founded and built Canada's leading film and television company Alliance Communications, of which he was Chairman and CEO. In 1998, he sold his controlling interest in Alliance, and now produces films through his production company Serendipity Point Films. Beginning with his first credit as producer - L'Ange et la femme (1976), directed by Gilles Carle and the winner of the International Critics Prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival - Mr. Lantos has made over 30 feature films.
Mr. Lantos has established longstanding creative relationships with several of the world's pre-eminent directors. His many credits include Istvàn Szabò's Being Julia, for which Annette Bening earned an Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe Award and the National Board of Review award for Best Actress; and Sunshine, which earned three Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Picture. He has also produced Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (Cannes Grand Prix winner; nominated for two Academy Awards), Where the Truth Lies (Official Selection, Cannes International Film Festival; a Toronto International Film Festival Gala), and Ararat (Official Selection, Cannes International Film Festival; a Toronto International Film Festival Gala).
His other features include In Praise of Older Women, directed by George Kaczender (Opening Night Gala, Toronto International Film Festival); Joshua Then and Now, directed by Ted Kotcheff (In Competition, Cannes International Film Festival); Black Robe, directed by Bruce Beresford (Opening Night Gala, Toronto International Film Festival; Genie Award for Best Picture); Whale Music, directed by Richard Lewis (four Genie Awards); Johnny Mnemonic, directed by Robert Longo; Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey (In Competition, Cannes International Film Festival; Opening Night Gala, Toronto International Film Festival); Denys Arcand's Stardom (Closing Night, Cannes International Film Festival; Opening Night Gala, Toronto International Film Festival) and the Canadian domestic boxoffice phenomenon Men with Brooms.
Mr. Lantos's extensive television credits include the drama series Due South and E.N.G.; and such telefilms and miniseries as Shot Through the Heart, The Hunchback, Sword of Gideon, Family of Strangers, and Woman on the Run.
He is a member of the Order of Canada and a member of the Board of Indigo Books & Music. Mr. Lantos holds an honorary Doctor of Letters from McGill University.
STEPHEN GARRETT (Executive Producer)
Stephen Garrett is joint managing director, with Jane Featherstone, of Kudos Film & Television Ltd., one of Britain's premier television production companies. Eastern Promises is the first project for the company's new film division, headed by Paul Webster, to reach movie screens.
Since its inception in 1992, Kudos has produced such notable projects as the hit caper series Hustle; the BAFTA Award-nominated cop fantasy series Life on Mars; Paul Lynch's International Emmy Award-winning The Magician's House; Grant Gee's Grammy Award-nominated feature documentary on Radiohead, Meeting People is Easy; and the BAFTA Award-winning spy drama series Spooks (titled MI-5 in the U.S.), which gave Matthew Macfadyen his breakout role.
Also for Focus Features, Mr. Garrett is producing Kudos's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, starring Frances McDormand and directed by Bharat Nalluri, whose most recent credit was Kudos's miniseries Tsunami: The Aftermath (which was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards). Rounding out the current Kudos slate of features is the documentary The Crimson Wing, co-directed by Matthew Aeberhard and Leander Ward.
Mr. Garrett's producing credits also include Gillies MacKinnon's Pure, starring Keira Knightley; and Sam Miller's Among Giants, starring Pete Postlethwaite and Rachel Griffiths.
DAVID M. THOMPSON (Executive Producer)
David M. Thompson began his career at the BBC as a documentary maker. He began producing drama while working for the BBC's Everyman documentary series, where he produced the original Shadowlands (directed by Norman Stone), which won the British Academy Award for Best Drama and an International Emmy Award. Subsequent productions included the BAFTA Award-winning Safe, directed by Antonia Bird, and Alan Clarke's The Firm and Road.
Mr. Thompson was appointed Head of BBC Films in May 1997, overseeing a slate of films for cinema and television. Past BBC Films productions include John Madden's acclaimed Mrs. Brown; Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot (the company's most successful film to date, which took in over $100 million worldwide, and which won three BAFTA Awards and was nominated for three Academy Awards); Richard Eyre's Iris, starring Dame Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, and Jim Broadbent, who won the Academy Award for his performance; Stephen Frears's Dirty Pretty Things, written by Eastern Promises screenwriter Steve Knight; Michael Winterbottom's In This World (BAFTA Award winner, and winner of the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival), Code 46, and [Tristram Shandy:] A Cock and Bull Story; Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar; Roger Michell's The Mother; Christine Jeffs's Sylvia (also a Focus Features release); Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen; Pawel Pawlikowski's Last Resort and My Summer of Love (also a Focus Features release); Danny Boyle's Millions; Stephen Frears's Mrs. Henderson Presents; Michael Caton-Jones's Shooting Dogs (a.k.a. Beyond the Gates); Andrea Arnold's Red Road, which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival; Nicholas Hytner's The History Boys; and Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal, which received four Academy Award nominations.
Upcoming releases include Justin Chadwick's The Other Boleyn Girl, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, and Eric Bana; Gareth Carrivick's Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel; James Honeyborne's documentary feature Meerkats; Julian Jarrold's Brideshead Revisited, starring Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, and Hayley Atwell; John Maybury's The Edge of Love, starring Keira Knightley, Matthew Rhys, Sienna Miller, and Cillian Murphy; Jane Campion's Bright Star, starring Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish; and Sam Mendes's highly anticipated Revolutionary Road, reuniting Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
JEFF ABBERLEY and JULIA BLACKMAN (Executive Producers)
In August 2002, Jeff Abberley and Julia Blackman established Scion Films. This filmmaking partnership was initiated with the aim of financing and producing British feature films of significance.
Eastern Promises marks Scion’s fourth collaboration with Focus Features, following Phillip Noyce’s acclaimed Catch a Fire, starring Tim Robbins and Derek Luke; Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice, starring Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley; and Fernando Meirelles’s The Constant Gardener. For the latter film, Rachel Weisz won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award, and Mr. Meirelles was a Golden Globe Award nominee.
Upcoming for Focus release, on behalf of Scion Mr. Abberley and Ms. Blackman are executive-producing Academy Award-winning writer/director Martin McDonagh’s suspense thriller In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. The film is currently in post-production.
Scion’s slate of films in release or due soon also includes Julian Jarrold’s Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy; and Mary McGuckian’s Intervention, starring Jennifer Tilly, Andie MacDowell, and Ian Hart.
The company’s previous projects include Michael Winterbottom’s [Tristram Shandy:] A Cock and Bull Story; Joel Schumacher’s worldwide success The Phantom of the Opera; Antoine de Caunes’s Monsieur N.; Nick Hurran’s It’s a Boy Girl Thing; Mary McGuckian’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Rag Tale; and Richard E. Grant’s Wah-Wah.
Immediately prior to forming Scion, Mr. Abberley and Ms. Blackman together for two-and-one-half years ran the film financing arm of Future Film Group (FFG) which was involved in U.K. film financing, production distribution, and post-production. Mr. Abberley was one of the founding partners of the company and was director of the group with Ms. Blackman, who was also a lawyer for FFG. The company was involved in the financing and production of, among other films, Gurinder Chadha’s sleeper hit Bend It Like Beckham; Fred Schepisi’s all-star Last Orders; Mike Barker’s To Kill a King; Nick Hurran’s Undertaking Betty; and Liliana Cavani’s Ripley’s Game.
Mr. Abberley previously was an advisor on production financing for film and television projects. Ms. Blackman previously was a lawyer who advised on film financing structures and tax issues for clients with film and television projects. Both also recently executive-produced Richard Attenborough’s Closing the Ring.
TRACEY SEAWARD (Co-Producer)
Tracey Seaward most recently produced Stephen Frears’s The Queen, for which Dame Helen Mirren won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, and the BAFTA Award, among many other honors she and/or the picture received around the world. As producer, Ms. Seaward received a BAFTA Award when the picture was cited as Best Film of the Year, and was similarly an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominee.
She had previously worked with Mr. Frears as producer of Dirty Pretty Things, which earned Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and WGA Award nominations for Eastern Promises screenwriter Steve Knight’s original screenplay. The film won several awards, including the London Evening Standard Award for Best British Film; the San Diego Film Critics Society award for Best Picture; and the top prize at the British Independent Film Awards.
Ms. Seaward’s first feature film producing credit was on John Irvin’s Widow’s Peak, as co-producer. She then produced Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s Nothing Personal, for which Ian Hart was cited as Best Supporting Actor at the 1995 Venice International Film Festival.
Ms. Seaward’s subsequent films as producer have included Pat Murphy’s Nora, starring Ewan McGregor as James Joyce. She was co-producer of Neil Jordan’s The Good Thief and Danny Boyle’s Millions, as well as (also for Focus Features) Fernando Meirelles’s The Constant Gardener. For the latter film, Rachel Weisz won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award, among many other honors she and/or the picture received around the world.
PETER SUSCHITZKY (Director of Photography)
Eastern Promises marks Peter Suschitzky’s eighth film with director David Cronenberg, three of which have won Mr. Suschitzky Genie Awards for Best Cinematography; Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, and Crash. Their other collaborations to date are A History of Violence, Spider, eXistenZ, and M. Butterfly.
The son of cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky, Peter Suschitzky was born and raised in London. Although music was his passion, he decided that cinematography would become his profession. After studying his trade in Paris at IDHEC, he became a clapper boy at age 19 and a cameraman at 21, spending a year in South America shooting documentaries before shooting his first feature film at age 22 – making him the youngest cinematographer ever to lens a feature picture (Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s It Happened Here) in Britain.
Since then, he has worked with filmmakers all over the world, as director of photography on such memorable movies as Irvin Kershner’s The Empire Strikes Back; Jim Sharman’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show; and Peter Watkins’s Privilege and The Peace Game. In addition to Mr. Cronenberg, Peter Suschitzky has enjoyed multiple collaborations with John Boorman (on Leo the Last and Where the Heart Is, which earned him the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Cinematography) and Ken Russell (on Lisztomania and Valentino, which earned him BAFTA and British Society of Cinematography Award nominations), among other directors. Among the other notable films that he has shot are Albert Finney’s Charlie Bubbles; Ulu Grosbard’s Falling in Love; Howard Franklin’s The Public Eye; George Sluizer’s The Vanishing (1993); Bernard Rose’s Immortal Beloved; Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!; Randall Wallace’s The Man in the Iron Mask; and Anand Tucker’s Shopgirl.
CAROL SPIER (Production Designer)
Eastern Promises continues Carol Spier’s longtime association with director David Cronenberg, which has encompassed A History of Violence, eXistenz, Crash, M. Butterfly, Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers, The Fly, The Dead Zone, Videodrome, Scanners, The Brood, and Fast Company as well as two television docudramas for the CBC’s (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Scales of Justice and the short film Camera. She won Genie Awards for Naked Lunch and Dead Ringers, and was additionally nominated for The Brood, Videodrome, Scanners, and eXistenZ.
The native Canadian studied Interior Design at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture. She began her career as an interior designer in Winnipeg. During this period, she also worked as a set and costume designer with various theater groups, including the Manitoba Theater Center.
Ms. Spier’s first movie work was on Leonard Yakir’s The Mourning Suit, on which she served as set designer, set dresser, and property master. She then worked as an assistant art director on several feature films, including Sidney Lumet’s Equus, and was later art director on such films as Norman Jewison’s Agnes of God and John Schlesinger’s The Believers.
Her many film credits as production designer include John Boorman’s Where the Heart Is; Alan J. Pakula’s Consenting Adults; John Pasquin’s The Santa Clause; Guillermo del Toro’s Blade II and Mimic; Stephen Norrington’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; and Christophe Gans’s Silent Hill.
For television, Ms. Spier has notably designed the PBS/CBC series Anne of Green Gables, for which she won a Gemini Award [Canada’s equivalent of the Emmy Award] for Best Art Direction; Lloyd Fonvielle’s telefilm Gotham, for which she received a CableACE Award nomination; Kathy Bates’s telefilm Dash and Lilly; and Rod Holcomb’s miniseries Thanks of a Grateful Nation.
RONALD SANDERS (Editor)
Eastern Promises is Ronald Sanders’s fourteenth film for David Cronenberg. He previously edited A History of Violence, Spider, eXistenZ, Crash, M. Butterfly, Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers, The Fly, The Dead Zone, Videodrome, Scanners, Fast Company, and the short Camera for the director.
Born in Winnipeg, Mr. Sanders was exposed to film at an early age since his father worked as a projectionist. After graduating with a B.A. from St. John’s College, Uiversity of Manitoba, he moved to Toronto where he edited documentaries and began working on features as a sound editor.
Among his feature credits as editor are Mark L. Lester’s Firestarter; Yves Simoneau’s Pefectly Normal; Robert Longo’s Johnny Mnemonic; and Anais Granofsky’s The Limb Salesman.
Mr. Sanders has also edited such notable telefilms as Norman Jewison’s Dinner with Friends; Steven Hilliard Stern’s The Park is Mine; Daniel Petrie Jr.’s Dead Silence; and Lamont Johnson’s All the Winters That Have Been.
DENISE CRONENBERG (Costume Designer)
Denise Cronenberg has been the costume designer on eight of her brother David Cronenberg’s features; The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, eXistenZ, Crash, Spider, A History of Violence, and now Eastern Promises, earning three Genie Award nominations over the years. She also costume-designed his short Camera; and previously worked with him as wardrobe trainee on Videodrome and wardrobe mistress on The Dead Zone.
After studying ballet in her native Toronto, she majored in radio and television arts at Ryerson Polytech. Following graduation, she trained with The American Ballet Theatre before joining the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. She also danced on CBC variety shows. Switching careers, she designed her own line of clothing before moving on to costume-designing.
Ms. Cronenberg has designed the costumes for such features as David Anspaugh’s Moonlight and Valentino; John N. Smith’s A Cool, Dry Place and telefilm Sugartime; Eriq La Salle’s telefilm Rebound: The Legend of Earl “The Goat” Manigault; Agnieszka Holland’s The Third Miracle; Kasi Lemmons’s The Caveman’s Valentine; James Wan’s Dead Silence; Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead; and Michael Davis's Shoot 'Em Up.
She is currently at work as costume designer on Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, and William Hurt.
HOWARD SHORE (Music)
Howard Shore has collaborated with David Cronenberg on a number of groundbreaking films. Their works together to date are The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers (for which Mr. Shore won a Genie Award), Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, Crash, eXistenZ, the short Camera, Spider, A History of Violence, and now Eastern Promises.
Mr. Shore is among the most respected and active film composers and music conductors at work today. He won three Academy Awards for his work on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy; these were for The Fellowship of the Ring, The Return of the King, and the song "Into the West." The trilogy also earned him four Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. He received his third Golden Globe Award for his score of Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. He has earned the ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Henry Mancini Award; the National Board of Review's Career Achievement Award; the Hollywood Film Festival's Outstanding Achievement in Music in Film award; and, twice, the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award, among other honors.
Mr. Shore began his career as a founding member of the group Lighthouse, with whom he recorded and toured with from 1969 to 1972. He then went on to serve as the original musical director of Saturday Night Live, conducting the show’s live broadcasts from 1975 to 1980 and writing the show's theme.
His many film scores include the ones for Martin Scorsese's The Departed, Gangs of New York, and After Hours; Tim Burton's Ed Wood; Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia; David Fincher's Panic Room, The Game, and Se7en; Penny Marshall's Big; and Chris Columbus's Mrs. Doubtfire. In addition to his film projects, Mr. Shore is currently writing The Fly, an opera commissioned by Thèâtre du Châtelet in Paris and Los Angeles Opera, with a libretto by David Henry Hwang and David Cronenberg to direct.
STEPHAN DUPUIS (Make-Up Designer)
Stephan Dupuis began working with David Cronenberg on Scanners. Prior to Eastern Promises, their subsequent projects together included Naked Lunch, Crash, eXistenz, Spider, A History of Violence and The Fly, for which Mr. Dupuis was nominated for a BAFTA Award and won an Academy Award (shared with Chris Walas).
He has earned three Emmy Award nominations, for his make-up on Ivan Passer's Stalin, starring Robert Duval; Robert Dornhelm's Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story, starring James Woods; and Robert Allan Ackerman's The Reagans, starring James Brolin.
Among Mr. Dupuis's film credits are Wolfgang Petersen's Enemy Mine; Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop and Total Recall; Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear; Mel Gibson's The Man Without a Face; Chris Columbus's Mrs. Doubtfire; George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind; Niels Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon; and Francis Lawrence's soon-to-be-released I Am Legend.
Self-taught, he began experimenting with foam latex make-up in his parents's basement in his native Montreal. While attending university, he was hired to assist the head make-up artist on Alvin Rakoff's City on Fire, and ultimately captained the FX make-up department on the project.
After graduating from Sir George Williams Campus with a Masters Degree in Cinema Fine Arts, his work was spotted by make-up artistry icon Dick Smith, who invited him to collaborate in New York. Mr. Dupuis next worked on the Academy Award-winning make-up for Jean-Jacques Annaud's Quest for Fire, and teamed with Mr. Walas for Mr. Cronenberg's Scanners.
Ekrem.............................JOSEF ALTIN
Azim..............................MINA E. MINA
Soyka.............................ALEKSANDER MIKIC
Tatiana...........................SARAH JEANNE LABROSSE
Customer.........................LALITA AHMED
Chemist..........................BADI UZZAMAN
Anna..............................NAOMI WATTS
Nurse.............................DONA CROLL
Doctor Aziz.......................RAZA JAFFREY
Helen.............................SINEAD CUSACK
Stepan............................JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI
Tatiana's Voice...................TATIANA MASLANY
Nikolai...........................VIGGO MORTENSEN
Kirill............................VINCENT CASSEL
Semyon............................ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL
Maria.............................SHANNON-FLEUR ROUX
Violin Girl.......................LILLIBET LANGLEY
Azim’s Wife.......................MIA SOTERIOU
Head Waiter.......................RAD KAIM
Yuri..............................DONALD SUMPTER
Senior Officer....................RHODRI MILES
Kirilenko.........................TEREZA SRBOVA
Prostitute........................ELISA LASOWSKI
Prostitute........................CHRISTINA CATALINA
Prostitute........................ALICE HENLEY
Pimp..............................FATON GERBESHI
Chechen...........................DAVID PAPAVA
Chechen...........................TAMER HASSAN
Junior Waiter.....................ERGO DANKA
Valery............................MIKE SARNE
Russian Boss......................BORIS ISAROV
Russian Boss......................YURI KLIMOV
The Gypsy.........................ANDRZEJ BORKOWSKI
Tattooist.........................OLEGAR FEDORO
Stunt Coordinators................JULIAN SPENCER & PAUL HERBERT
Stunts............................LUCY ALLEN
..................................GARY ARTHURS
..................................GEORGE COTTLE
..................................STEPHANIE CAREY
..................................DOMINIC PREECE
Crew
Directed by......................................DAVID CRONENBERG
Screenplay by....................................STEVE KNIGHT
Produced by......................................PAUL WEBSTER, ROBERT LANTOS
Executive Producers..............................STEPHEN GARRETT
.................................................DAVID M. THOMPSON
.................................................JEFF ABBERLEY
.................................................JULIA BLACKMAN
Co-Producer......................................TRACEY SEAWARD
Director of Photography..........................PETER SUSCHITZKY
Production Designer..............................CAROL SPIER
Editor...........................................RONALD SANDERS
Costume Designer.................................DENISE CRONENBERG
Music by.........................................HOWARD SHORE
Casting by.......................................DEIRDRE BOWEN & NINA GOLD
This film is dedicated to the memory of Lisa Parker, 1967-2007
Unit Production Manager................................LISA PARKER
First Assistant Director...............................WALTER GASPAROVIC
Second Assistant Director..............................BEN HOWARD
Post-Production Supervisor.............................LORI WATERS
Production Sound Mixer.................................STUART WILSON, AMPS
Music Supervisor.......................................KAREN ELLIOTT/
.......................................................HOTHOUSE MUSIC LTD.
Supervising Art Director...............................NICK PALMER
Art Director...........................................REBECCA HOLMES
Standby Art Director...................................SARAH STUART
Graphic Designer.......................................HELEN KOUTAS
Chief Draughtsman......................................DEAN CLEGG
Assistant Art Director.................................CAT PALMER
Scenic Artists.........................................DAVID PACKARD
.......................................................ROBERT DUGDALE
Art Department Runner..................................LISA MELLER
Art Department Assistant and Model Maker...............KATE CURTIS
Art Department Trainees................................KEVIN BROWN
.......................................................AMY MERRY
.......................................................ANNA LOUISE THOMAS
.......................................................LEONIE HEYS CERCHIO
Set Decorator..........................................JUDY FARR
Property Master........................................BRUCE BIGG
Prop Storeman..........................................STAN COOK
Props Buyer............................................CORINA BURROUGH
Key Standby Props......................................WARREN STICKLEY
Standby Props..........................................GARY WIFFIN
Chargehand Dressing Props..............................PETER BIGG
Dressing Props.........................................PETER HASLER
.......................................................MICHAEL FLEMING
Drapesman..............................................GRAHAM CAULFIELD
Home Economist.........................................SILVANA ROWE
FT2 Props Trainee......................................ALEXIS HAMILTON
Steadicam Operators....................................ALF TRAMONTIN
.......................................................ROGER TOOLEY
First Assistant A-Camera...............................CATHERINE DERRY
Second Assistant A-Camera..............................CATHARINE BROWN
Camera Trainee.........................................KATE COOPER
FT2 Camera Trainee.....................................VICKY SIMPSON
Production Coordinator.................................SAMANTHA KNOX-JOHNSTON
Assistant Production Coordinator.......................JO WALLETT
Production Secretary...................................SARAH LINDFIELD
Third Assistant Director...............................ANDREW MANNION
Crowd 2nd Assistant Director...........................CANDY MARLOWE
Assistant to Mr. Webster..............................JO DAVIES
Executive Assistant to Mr. Lantos.....................CHERRI CAMPBELL
Assistant to Mr. Cronenberg...........................CAROLYN ROHALY
Assistant to Mr. Cronenberg & Ms. Seaward.............SCOTT JACOBSON
Assistant to Mr. Knight...............................JULIE BRINKMAN
Assistant to Ms. Watts................................LAUREN BARNHART
Assistant to Mr. Cassel...............................JAMES NICHOLSON
Key Office Production Assistant.......................KEVIN PROCTOR
Key Set Production Assistant..........................LAURA WINDEBANK
Script Supervisor.....................................SUSANNA LENTON
Dialogue Coach........................................ANDREW JACK
Dialogue Coach (Tatiana)..............................JOHN NELLES
Russian Dialect Coach.................................OLEGAR FEDORO
Turkish Dialogue Advisors.............................PHILIP ARDITTI
......................................................ESIN HARVEY
......................................................ROY GOKAY WOL
Medical Advisor.......................................CARLTON JARVIS
Boom Operator.........................................ORIN BEATON
Sound Assistant.......................................MITCH LOW
FT2 Sound Trainee.....................................JAMES GIBB
Assistant Costume Designer............................NIGEL EGERTON
Set Costume Supervisor................................CHRIS BRADSHAW
Costume Standby.......................................KATHRYN BLIGHT
Wardrobe Assistant....................................JULIE MERRITT
FT2 Costume Trainee...................................VIVEENE CAMPBELL
Make-Up Designer......................................STEPHAN DUPUIS
Ms. Watts's Make-Up Artist............................CHRISTINE BLUNDELL
Make-Up Artist........................................CHARMAINE FULLER
Make-Up Assistant.....................................LUCY SIBBICK
Key Hairstylist.......................................MARY LOU
......................................................GREEN-BENVENUTI
First Assistant Hairstylist...........................PAUL MOONEY
Tattoos Supplied by...................................DAVE STONEMAN
......................................................MAEK-UP
Vincent Cassel's Hair Coloured by.....................JOHN NOLLET
First Assistant Editor................................TAD SEABORN
Assistant Editor (Canada).............................SANDY M. PEREIRA
Assistant Editor (U.K.)...............................SANDRA McCALLIG
Post-Production Coordinator...........................EMMA SANDERS
Post-Production Accountants...........................MADELEINE
......................................................WAZANA
......................................................CATHERINE CURRIE/KATMADHU PRODUCTIONS INC.
Production Accountant.................................LOUISE O'MALLEY
First Assistant Accountant............................KERRY SMITH
Assistant Accountant..................................DIARMUID COGHLAN
Cashier...............................................DORIAN HAREWOOD
Assets Representative.................................BRYONY BIRKBECK
Chief Lighting Technician.............................JOHN COLLEY
Best Boy Electric.....................................ANDY COLE
Rigging Gaffer........................................VINCE MADDEN
Electricians..........................................MIKE PARSONS
......................................................ROY BRANCH
......................................................JOHN CLARKE
......................................................KEVIN FITZPATRICK
......................................................BEN KERR
......................................................MATTHEW WILSON
......................................................DARREN HARVEY
......................................................CHRIS ALLKINS
Rigging Electricians..................................GARY NAGLE
......................................................PAUL BARKER
......................................................TOMMY CARLIN
......................................................DANNY MADDEN
......................................................ROBERT GAVIGAN
Key Grip..............................................ADRIAN McCARTHY
Assistant Grip........................................LUKE CHISHOLM
Standby Carpenter.....................................GARY MOORE
Standby Rigger........................................DAVE GRAY
Standby Painter.......................................PETER EDGE
Key Location Manager..................................DAVID BRODER
Location Manager......................................CAMILLA STEPHENSON
Unit Manager..........................................BOBBY PRINCE
Assistant Location Manager............................SAM LEEK
Location Assistants...................................BILLY PEGG
......................................................ROBERT ELLIS
......................................................IAN FORD
Stand-Ins.............................................JAMES PAYTON
......................................................GEMMA READ
......................................................RORY SHAW
SPECIAL EFFECTS BY DARKSIDE LTD.
Special Effects Supervisor............................MANEX EFREM
Senior Special Effects Technician.....................STEVE PATON
Supervising Sound Editors.............................WAYNE GRIFFIN
......................................................MICHAEL O'FARRELL
Dialogue Editors......................................TONY CURRIE
......................................................ALASTAIR GRAY
Effects Editor........................................ROBERT BERTOLA
Assistant Sound Editors...............................MATTHEW HUSSEY
......................................................GREN-ERICH ZWICKER
Digital Intermediate..................................DELUXE | EFILM | TORONTO
DI Colorist...........................................CHRIS WALLACE
DI Producer...........................................NICK IANNELLI
DI Editor.............................................DAVE MUSCAT
DI Opticals...........................................CHRIS MACKENZIE
......................................................AHMAD ISMAIL
......................................................MOTASSEM YOUNES
DI Scan/Record........................................NICK PAULOZZA
......................................................TREVOR LEWIS
HD Preview Colorist...................................MILA PATRIKI
HD Preview Editor.....................................MOTASSEM YOUNES
Re-Recording Mixers...................................OREST SUSHKO
......................................................CHRISTIAN COOKE
......................................................MARK ZSIFKOVITS
Mix Technician........................................JAMIE GOULD
Re-Recorded at........................................DELUXE | POST-PRODUCTION | TORONTO
Foley Recorded at.....................................FOOTSTEPS POST-PRODUCTION SOUND INC.
Foley Artists.........................................GORO KOYAMA
......................................................ANDY MALCOLM
Foley Recording Mixer.................................DON WHITE
Foley Recording Assistants............................JENNA DALLA RIVA
......................................................ANNA MALKIN
ADR Mixer (U.K.)......................................PAUL CARR
ADR Recordist (U.K.)..................................MARK APPLEBY
Recorded at...........................................GOLDCREST POST
ADR Recordist (Canada)...............................CHRISTIAN COOKE
Assistant ADR Recordists (Canada).....................RUDY MICHAEL
......................................................STEVE MOORE
Recorded at...........................................URBAN POST PRODUCTION ADR
Voice Casting.........................................BRENDAN DONNISON, MPSE
......................................................VANESSA BAKER
Construction Manager..................................DAVE CREED
Supervising Carpenter.................................DAVE ABBOTT
Scenic Carpenters.....................................BARRY ABBOTT
......................................................JON HEAYN
......................................................MATTHEW WHELAN
......................................................BARRY O'BRIEN
...........................................