McAvoy obsessed with finding what drives…
McAvoy obsessed with finding what drives 'Victor Frankenstein'
By Stephen Schaefer |
PUBLISHED: November 24, 2015 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: November 18, 2018 at 12:00 a.m.
NEW YORK — Playing the titular scientist in "Victor Frankenstein," there is a demented gleam in James McAvoy's eyes and an unsettling smile.
It's clear this scientist who would challenge God in creating life is truly mad in this frenetic riff on the Frankenstein mythology.
"I've been up since 5:30 on jet lag," a cheerful and wide awake McAvoy, 36, confided at the Crosby Street Hotel.
As for his gleefully hyped-up portrait of a visionary so crazed with his own fervor he's incapable of listening to anyone else, including his stern scientist father (Charles Dance), the "X-Men" actor knew exactly where he wanted to go.
"Victor has always been maniacally obsessional and we went for that in the true sense and tried to investigate that in a post-Freudian world.
"He's so energetic and the book" — by Max Landis — "is about a scientist's obsession. But in the book he goes on vacation for a year and is completely sane.
"We stayed in a post-Freudian world to ask, 'Why is he so maniacal and bipolar?'
"It's not just because he's a 'mad scientist.' It was: Don't let him off the hook because he does a bad thing at the end and kills his own creation. Keep him that all the way through."
Victor Frankenstein, at least for McAvoy, is "not just an adaptation or remake of previous books but a film that's inspired by the entire zeitgeist-driven perception of what the original 'Frankenstein' film means.
"That's why there's an Igor (played by Daniel Radcliffe) in it, who was never in Mary Shelley's book.
"It has to be controversial and dicey and that's harder to do these days. Like when Mary Shelley wrote it, it was controversial that two men were trying to be God.
"By making a piece of entertainment about someone so driven (we see Victor) has this big massive hole inside him and it never gets smaller.
"It gets bigger and bigger and his ego gets bigger. The prime requisite for becoming a god is creating a life — and he nearly achieves it."
("Victor Frankenstein" opens tomorrow.)
Stephen Schaefer
Film critic and entertainment reporter Stephen Schaefer writes regularly for The Boston Herald with interviews, features, reviews and "Hollywood & Mine," a weekly BostonHerald.com/entertainment/movies column. He frequently speaks with film clubs about upcoming releases and often covers film festivals in Berlin, Venice, New York and Toronto.
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