“Inevitably the first day was the most disastrous shooting day I’ve ever had […] It kept on being that difficult.  Patrick McGoohan was part of the reason.  He’s a brilliant actor: the voice, the charisma, the presence, the face.  Phenomenal.  And he was ageing so well; he looked so great in that beard.  But he was so angry.  His self-hatred came out as anger against everybody and everything.  He said to me, ‘If I didn’t drink I’d be afraid I’d kill someone.’  He looks at you that way and you just say, ‘Keep drinking.’  It’s all self-destructive, because it’s all self-hating.  That’s my theory.  He was also terrified.  The second before we went to shoot he said, ‘I’m scared.’  I wasn’t shocked; Olivier said he was terrified each time he had to go on stage.  With Patrick, though, it was just so raw and so scary - full of anger and potent.  But he was sensing the disorganization; the script wasn’t there, so he was right to worry about it.  He didn’t know me.  He didn’t know whether I could bring it off or not.  We parted from the film on not very good terms, ultimately.”

david cronenberg on scanners, from the book cronenberg on cronenberg, 1992