The charming and candid Cassel sat down with Movieline this month to discuss his interpretation of Mesrine, his own love of celebrity, and the pair of English-language films he has on the way: Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, and David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method.
Making this movie, did you feel like you might contribute to the perception of Mesrine as a glamorous outlaw?
That's an interesting way to put it. We definitely didn't try to glorify him, and on a personal level, I can tell you that I actually fought for that. My take on that is yes, he was a racist, yes, he killed Arabs during the war and away from the army, but still, after he died, people had this pretty positive image of him. It was like he was Robin Hood, except that he would never give anything back to anybody. To me, it's a big trick! He really tricked everybody, and we had to recreate the same trick, meaning that we wouldn't hide anything that he did. Yes, he's violent with women, yes, he's racist, all these things, but at the end of the movie, I think people root for him in a very weird and not-healthy way [Laughs]. I wanted to achieve that thing -- that was the challenge, really.
Why did you want that?
Because that's the point of making a movie about him. We have some kind of responsibility, really -- some people died because of this guy, and what [are their families] going to do when they see this movie? Shall I tell the young guys that, "Yes, it's cool to be a gangster. You should say no to authority, f**k everybody, take a gun, go get it"? I mean, I can't. Plus, I'm not a fan of the guy. I actually think he really tried to justify his choices of living through political matters that he wasn't really aware of.
So he just plucked any excuse he could think of from thin air?
Yeah, and a lot of people are like that, when you think about it. Rebel without a cause! You feel angry...I feel like that sometimes. I started to make very violent movies so I could rebel against something, and I wasn't really aware of what it was. Still, it was something I had to do. I think maybe Che Guevara was like that, too. They need to fight, so they find a reason to fight.
You may not have liked him, but you shot these two films over nine months. Did you worry about getting lost in this character?
Actually, my main concern was that I was scared of losing my concentration and energy while we were shooting, because it was such a long shoot. That's one thing I learned with this movie, is that I can work for a long time and still be passionate about it. When we stopped the movie after nine months, I could have gone for two or three more months.
Why not make it a solid year?
Yeah! Because I had so much fun, really. I'm not passionate about the guy but I'm really passionate about what I do, and when you have the opportunity to make a dense but still-entertaining film with that budget, you shouldn't let it pass.
Aside from getting lot in the character, did you worry about your performance getting lost? It spans such a length of time and it took so long to shoot, I wonder if you feared it would cut together coherently in the end.
I'm really close with the director, producer, and writer, so it's like we were all in the same boat, really. I felt comfortable and confident with the people I was working with, and we'd carried it around for seven years before we made the movie. I knew every aspect of it, I'd seen everything, I actually decided to get rid of one director and writer to have the right team...when you're that involved, you can't worry, really. It's too late for that.
But once, I did have a panic moment. Once we start, you don't have time to scared -- you don't have time to think, really. Every day, you're fighting with the scenes and sets and lines and new actors. You're in the state of mind when you go back home and night and the day-to-day of shooting unfolds and you realize what you did, but during the day, you don't have time for that. That's the great thing about moviemaking, I think: You do instinctive things and you learn about who you are you and discover how this microcosm works. It's a lot of tensions, personalities, egos, and you have to serve the whole thing.
But then we stopped for a few days in the middle because I had to go to Toronto to present Eastern Promises. So suddenly, I had to talk about the Russian mafia, and it was great and the movie was well-received and I was schmoozing, blah blah blah, and then I went back to Quebec where we were shooting [Mesrine], and I freaked out. I mean, totally. Something went wrong, and suddenly I was like, "What have I been doing since the beginning [of the shoot]? We were all wrong!"
Is it because you'd lost your concentration?
I lost my confidence. It's like Tyson being knocked down once and then he doesn't win ever again! I said to the director, "I need to see all the dailies again, I need to rewatch everything. I think we really f**ked up." And he was really freaked out! He said, "Please, Vincent, don't say that!" [Laughs] The minute he freaked out, I felt secure again, but I needed that moment of panic to get tense again. You need to be extremely relaxed and confident, but I'm sorry -- you need a hard-on, perpetually. If you start to go a little soft, then it's not a good time.
You would think that a criminal like Mesrine would want to be as undetectable as possible, but he seemed to revel in his celebrity. Why do you think that is?
Yeah, there's a paradox in that, I agree with you. But you have to understand that Mesrine didn't use the press at first -- they used him.
But then he figured out how to use them back.
No, totally. Actually, I think that's the reason of his death. There was a magazine called Liberacion in France, and it's traditionally a left-wing journal. When this guy was escaping and robbing banks and turning the government into fools, they used him. They started to elevate him as an icon of the counter-power, and he became the star of all those newspapers. They would cheer for him, and when he read it, he was flattered. He knew that through there, he didn't have to rob as many banks anymore to be famous -- he could just make crazy statements. Through that process, he was the favorite celebrity of the French people, which really means a lot. People voted and people loved him!
But were they loving him or this image that had been spun around him?
I mean, this guy was like a clown! He was talking loud, he was saying incredible things, he was threatening the Ministry of Justice -- saying, "If you don't do this and this, I'm going to put bombs everywhere" -- so people were scared, but they were scared like they were of Muhammad Ali when he shook up the world. They were scared, but they were attracted to him. And I think he liked it so much that he went too far.
All the police were looking for him, and he managed to hide and at the same time be on the cover of Paris Match with a machine gun, a mask, hand grenades. He threatened the government in a long interview, and that was the end, really. I mean, the government really felt like fools at the time, and they couldn't afford it, so they decided to drop everything else and terminate the guy. That's what happened: They literally killed him without any trial.
The interesting thing to know is that none of the crimes he's been accused of have been proven today. The guy was killed in the street with seventeen bullets and one in the head to be sure, without any proof of anything. It was just because he was getting too loud.
Is it a conflict you can relate to somewhat? As an actor, you want to disappear into your characters, and yet you're still a celebrity -- your face appears on perfume ads. How do you reconcile the fact that you want to slip undetected as an actor with the fact that you're famous and have celebrity?
Yeah, it's totally contradictory. I agree with you that it's a tricky thing. You have to be careful, and you have to be clear with yourself. I think the real secret is not to take yourself too seriously, and then you can live with this thing. Actors who say, "I love when I'm not recognized," I think they're lying. If you do this job, I think it's because you want people to like you. It's a question of balance, really. You've got to play the game, but not too much.
So you can allow yourself to enjoy your own celebrity?
Of course I do! Of course. It's not on a huge level -- I can still walk the streets, I can still travel, I don't have to take private planes. I'm sure that for a lot of huge American stars, it must be very difficult to have a normal life.
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.