“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
i think sometimes...carry great burdens.
Fascinating stuff....a dark side which most geniuses had.