It's been a few years since Dublin-born, fiftysomething actor Gabriel Byrne was in the spotlight. Last seen fighting a losing battle with Arnold Schwarzenegger in "End of Days", he's now appearing as Ralph Fiennes' father in David Cronenberg's "Spider" (yep, it's that kind of film)...
What attracted you to "Spider"?
David Cronenberg, specifically. There are very few directors like him left, and cinema needs Cronenbergs. If you look at the history of the movies that he has made, they have all been movies that have in some way challenged the received notion of a particular thing, and forced you to really look. It's more important to shock and outrage for valid reasons than it is to, say, make a conventional film. I don't think David Cronenberg is even capable of making a safe, conventional film.
"Spider" takes place on different planes of reality. How difficult is that to play?
It's actually pretty complex, because there's two levels of reality in the narrative. One is what really took place, and the other is Spider's poisoned version of what took place. And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.
We see your character doing bad things, but David Cronenberg says you're playing a good man. What's your interpretation?
It really depends on who's doing the perceiving. RD Laing said madness was a sane response to an insane situation, so who's to say that Spider is bad or good? Or that my character or Miranda Richardson's character is good or bad? But I'll tell you one thing: it's a very interesting theme to be playing around with.
We've seen you in some big budget films recently, like "End of Days". Do you do听those in order to do a film like "Spider"?
The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you. I don't think we're living in great times for movies, to tell you the truth. I mean, somebody told me the other day that David Cronenberg hadn't made a film for three-and-a-half years and that he was seriously thinking of going into a different occupation. That's kind of sad when you think about it.
