Published: 9 February, 2012
by DAN CARRIER

Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis don’t exactly have a reputation as being a barrel of laughs.

But for actor Viggo Mortensen – who is starring as Freud in A Dangerous Method, a new film studying Freud’s relationship with Carl Jung – one of the
key aspects of the philosopher-doctor’s character traits was just how much fun he was.

Mortensen – who has spent two years regularly visiting Freud’s Hampstead home in Maresfield Gardens, now the Freud Museum, as he prepared himself to take on the mantle of the father of the discipline – gave a talk at the museum last week.

He said discovering Freud’s quick wit and his fun-loving side had given him a way into playing the character.

“I look nothing like Freud at any stage of his life,” Mortensen said.

“I got some help from make up, a new nose, eyes and I put on a few pounds. But to really make him work, to be truly believable, I needed to research his life and his works.”

It meant that as well as spending time at his Hampstead home, Mortensen visited Vienna and Freud’s birthplace in the small, eastern European town of Pribor, in what is now the Czech Republic.

“I went to lots of antiquarian bookshops and found editions of works he would have had his nose buried in,” reveals the actor.

“And the more I read about him, the more I realised a key trait to him was he was actually very funny. He had a great sense of humour.

“I knew he had written about jokes and that helped me as an actor. It was a way in, a way to make him human.

I did not want to have to take him too seriously, [because] if you do not have fun then the audience will not, either.

“I was able to relax and put some irony into the character. He could speak for hours in a very engaging way. He was very witty in a direct manner.”

Director David Cronenberg, with whom Mortensen has worked before, persuaded him he could take on the Freud mantle.

It was a break from such roles as the returning king Aragorn in the Lord of The Rings trilogy, or the desperate father in the post-apocalypse film, The Road.

“I thought: How do I deal with this whole heap of dialogue?” he admits. “I had to find his voice, find his character. I am often not given that much to say in movies. That is just the way it has been for me so far.”

Freud has been portrayed on screen before. Montgomery Clift starred in The Secret Passion in 1962, which considered how he came up with his theories.

Mortensen, of course, had watched the Clift portrayal.

“I wanted to get over the same idea of Freud’s role as the pioneer of psychoanalysis,” he said.

The study of Freudian thought and his biography has given Mortensen added admiration for the person he brings to life on screen.

“Scientific investigation was the most logical way to learn and consider life, and what I admire most was how he kept doing that even though he believed no one could ever get to the very bottom of it all; that no one could ever comprehensively answer the questions he was asking.

But the point was to try anyway.

“For Freud, the point was exploration, regardless of not having an end answer to reach. This idea really bothers people, and is why people use blind faith to evade their problems. It takes courage to say: This is why this is like this.”

The film focuses on Freud’s relationship with his disciple Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), and a bitter dispute that simmered between the pair.

Jung falls in love with one of his patients, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), and finds himself questioning his master’s teachings.

“The battle with Jung weighed on him,” says Mortensen. “They wanted to be known in contemporary society and they were riddled with competitiveness, and with paranoia. They acted in ways that were as childish as the people they were trying to help. Yet, it was very human behaviour.”

Mortensen – perhaps not surprisingly – takes Freud’s position on the debate between the two.

“Whatever you want say about what happened, Jung stepped over the line with his handling of Sabina as a patient. It was not right.”

Jung did not tell his friend the truth about the situation – and this too caused further friction.

“Freud did not like to be lied to and I understand his reaction,” says Mortensen.

“The debate between them both was very passionate and Freud would be tickled by how heated the debate still is between the followers of Freud and the followers of Jung.”

The film hits the screens next week.

“You do not have to be interested in Freud or Jung to enjoy this movie,” says Mortensen. “You do not have to care about psychoanalysis. It is basically about three intelligent and ambitious people who want to make their mark.”