Eastern Promises

“Andrew, would you be free in November to do a film in London?” said the voice on the telephone. It was the producer Tracy Seaward, calling me in the summer of 2006. “We’re going to need Russian, both accent and language. I’ll send you a script. Oh, and it’s being directed by David Cronenberg.” Came the reply. Wow, I secretly thought, David Cronenberg!

“David would like to meet you at Three Mills” she said. The words Three Mills can fill one with horror – at least those of us who live to the West of London, Three Mills Studios is in the East, a very long way away. For me, a simple journey to most of London’s studios takes about half an hour; Three Mills can take as much as three hours, well it did the day I went to meet David Cronenberg!.

Viggo Mortensen was cast with Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassell and Armin Muller Stahl. All the actors, with the exception of Naomi Watts, had to speak with a Russian accent and at some stage, some Russian language.

We needed someone to help with the Russian dialogue. I had met someone, a long time ago; on another film, (these contacts are invaluable and I am constantly adding to a list of language speakers and accented individuals) but as it turned out she wasn’t available. The production office drew up a short list of Russians in addition to some recommendations that had been made to me, and eventually that was how we found Olegar Fedoro who also played the part of the tattooist in the film.

I met Viggo at his hotel in London and for a week or so we did some dialect sessions before he went off to Russia to do some character research. During this period I began work with Naomi at her home. The character she was playing was born and bred in London, but as there is an influence of Australian in Naomi’s speech, we needed to take out those sounds and include some others that were solely London.

Viggo returned from Russia and my work ‘proper’ began with him, Viggo’s preparation was as always, detailed and impeccable. His Russian accent was already well established, his visit to Russia had been invaluable. My work would now entail a limited amount of preparation with Viggo and then monitoring on set.

My work with Vincent took a different form, he needed to spend more time with Oleg Fedoro, to learn the Russian language dialogue, and this provided him with an excellent opportunity to listen to English spoken with a Russian accent all the time, and to learn the Russian as well.

This enabled me to concentrate on the other actors so I flew off to Germany to meet Armin Muller Stahl. His character in the film is of an older generation so Armin and I began the process of selecting sounds in his own speech that were similar to a Russian of his age, we then added other sounds, speech mannerisms and tune and rhythm that would help to make Armin sound even more authentically Russian.

After the preparation we moved in to the filming process. During the shoot we employed the services of a Turkish speaker Esin Harvey, for two characters played by Mina E. Mina and Joseph Altin. The two actors in the pharmacy scene at the beginning of the film, Badi Uzzaman and Lalita Ahmed spoke Hindi and most kindly improvised and translated their dialogue for us.

There were ‘day players’ that had to be coached as the film progressed and also a Russian VO or ‘voice over’ that had to be worked on and then recorded at a sound studio. This would enable David Cronenberg to have an idea of the timing of the scenes that the narration covered – it was beginning to feel as if the accent ‘shopping basket’ was getting quite full.

Considering the often-violent content of David’s films he brings to the set a really laid back atmosphere, never the less despite his coolness he is very much in charge. He is seemingly never flustered. I remember an incident when something had gone particularly wrong on the set, an incident that might have sent other directors into a mad panic or worse, David in his soft Canadian accent managed “Well, I don’t think we’ll do that again.” David is always interested in what one has to say; he is never disparaging and relies on his crew for their professional contributions.

One afternoon, I was standing behind David as he sat at the monitor reviewing a scene, and he turned to me and said quietly “Andrew, as an actor, did you ever play nude?” Well, I was a bit taken aback but I said that I hadn’t, and then asked him why he’d asked. “I need to cut away from Viggo and his assailants during the fight in the Turkish bath scene, I wondered if you’d be in the scene for me.” What an offer, how could I possibly refuse? “Can I have a small towel?” I heard myself say. “I think that can be arranged.” He said, and the deal was done.

Peter Mountain the production still photographer was standing next to me at the time and if I remember correctly made the suggestion that there could be two men in the Turkish bath for David to ‘cut away to’. So the ‘Two Handsome Bathers’ came into being - not my title I hasten to add but that’s how we were billed on the daily call sheets by the production team. To appear in one of the definitive fight scenes in movie history is a great honour, even more so because it was directed by one of the foremost moviemakers of our time.

 

 

The Handsome Bathers
Peter Mountain (left) and Andrew Jack