Vincent Cassel on Mesrine, Black Swan, and Acting: 'You Need a Hard-On, Perpetually'

What do you know about David Cronenberg's intention to make a sequel to Eastern Promises?

Well, I know it's planned, and I hope we're going to make it. It would be Viggo and myself, as planned, and part of it would happen in Russia. For the rest, we'll see.

And you're working with Cronenberg right now?

I completed the movie already. It's called A Dangerous Method. I play Otto Groce, the spiritual son of Freud. He would have been his follower, but he was much too crazy. Coked out, f**king everybody, having kids here and there and not taking care of them. He was really bright, but he was living too much what he was thinking about psychotherapy. He thought, "Don't repress anything, ever," and he would really do it.

It's sort of an unofficial Eatern Promises reunion, what with you, Cronenberg, and Viggo in the film as well.

You don't even know how flattered I was when he called me back in.

It's a great cast. Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley...

When I met Michael Fassbender for the first time....do you know him?

I've interviewed him a few times.

He's wonderful. He has charisma, he's light, he's talented, he's good-looking. I think he's going to have a wonderful career, honestly.

And now every superhero movie wants him. He's doing X-Men right now.

Oh, I know. Anyway, when David Cronenberg calls, you've got to pick up the phone. [Laughs]

You have a large role in Black Swan. A friend told me it's Darren Aronofksy's trippiest movie since Pi.

I don't know if it's his trippiest. I think the story is much easier to follow than in Pi -- which I love, by the way. I think his trippiest movie might be The Fountain, but I think this movie is very accessible. It's more in the early Cronenberg, early Polanski kind of mood, like The Tenant. It's a thriller, and it's going to be scary. I haven't seen it totally completed, but from what I've seen, I think you'll be very surprised. It might be even bigger than people think. It's a horror movie, in a way.

What will surprise people?

You know, it's an independent movie, and I think those can be hard sells nowadays. I think this one can be bigger than a studio might think of, at first. Plus, Natalie [Portman] is incredible in it.

I've heard Mila Kunis is great too.

They are, they are. But Natalie, she's the center of the movie.

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