TORONTO — Actress Sarah Gadon says David Cronenberg’s son Brandon is a confident force behind the camera, just like his famous father.
The Toronto resident appears in the younger Cronenberg’s debut film Antiviral, which just wrapped shooting in Toronto and Hamilton.
It centres on a clinic that harvests live viruses from sick celebrities and sells them to obsessed fans. Gadon plays a sick celebrity.
Gadon also co-stars in David Cronenberg’s new film A Dangerous Method, which opens Friday, and his upcoming Don DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis.
She looked for directing parallels between father and son and says Brandon displays a similar relaxed poise behind the lens.
Gadon notes that the sci-fi and disease themes of Antiviral also cover similar ground to David Cronenberg’s early work.
“Brandon is a lot like his father in the sense that he’s very calm on set — he’s very calm and relaxed and very clear and concise and so that is always refreshing to hear as an actor,” Gadon said Monday at the Toronto Film Critics’ Association awards where A Dangerous Method was up for best Canadian film.
“And I felt that same kind of energy so that was really exciting for me to be a part of, especially since I know it’s going to be his first feature-length film.”
Gadon says Brandon Cronenberg, who wrote and directs Antiviral, is intent on establishing his own voice.
Still, it’s hard not to notice apparent similarities to the work of his famous father.
Cronenberg’s early body-horror features include the 1975 parasite chiller Shivers.
“I think Brandon is certainly grappling with a lot of the same themes as some early Cronenberg work in terms of science and humanity and the parallels and contrasts between the two,” said Gadon.
“Antiviral” stars Caleb Landry Jones of “X-Men: First Class” and features Malcolm McDowell of “A Clockwork Orange.”