When Christoph Waltz took the role as the psychotic wife beater in WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, he had to drop out of the role of Sigmund Freud for David Cronenberg’s THE TALKING CURE.
Waltz’s departure left the producers in a rush for a replacement. Well, they found it in Viggo Mortensen.
Before they locked Mortensen, they were scared production on the film would be closed indefinitely. One of the filmmakers told Deadline, “You’d have thought Waltz wouldn’t want to be typecast as a sadist.” Mortensen was apparently more than happy to take the role, since he and Cronenberg had worked so well together on EASTERN PROMISES.
In the film, which is adapted from the play of the same name by Christopher Hampton, Freud (Mortensen) takes on pupil Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). When Jung has an affair with a troubled young woman (Keira Knightley) who is also his patient, Freud disapproves. The producers informed Deadline that there would be a lot of “spirited sex scenes” between Fassbender and Knightley.
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