Genesis, Concept, Casting

Eastern Promises has been brought to the screen through a unique creative collaboration forged among a Canadian auteur, a British screenwriter, producers and crew from both countries as well as the U.S., and a leading man able to fully inhabit a complex character.

Even before director David Cronenberg and actor Viggo Mortensen had memorably teamed up for one of the most acclaimed films of 2005, A History of Violence, screenwriter Steve Knight was searching for a follow-up to what would later be made as his acclaimed first feature, Dirty Pretty Things. Knight knew that he wanted to keep writing about intriguing subject matter – and people and places in London that are often overlooked.

Knight reflects, "I wrote Dirty Pretty Things because I was interested in the stories of the 'other London' beneath the surface, the London of newly arrived immigrants. I felt it was an area that could be explored in more than one feature. Dirty Pretty Things was about an African and a Turk, and Eastern Promises is about another community and another experience."

Producer Paul Webster comments, "The London that has emerged in the last 20 years is a polyglot society. Eastern Promises is one of the first films to emphasize that. I saw it as a companion piece to Steve's earlier work, in that there is a thriller element in a part of London we don't know about."

Originally, Knight had been commissioned to write an hourlong telefilm script about Eastern European "people traffic." Using that trade as a point of origin (both geographically and character-wise), his narrative moved into exploring those who profit from it. This criminal brotherhood is the Vory V Zakone (pronounced "vor-ee sack-o-nee"), "which is a real organization," reveals Knight. It soon became apparent that the new script warranted feature film treatment.

Knight called on resources in London and New York to be able to meet with criminals in both cities, as well as the London police, the Russian-assigned desk in London's West End, and the FBI in the U.S.

Knight admits, "The reality is so bizarre and upsetting that I had to tone it down for the script. Slavery usually happens in normal suburban streets; you don't see it, yet it's going on around you. Similarly, it was a revelation to me how different Eastern nationalities – Russian, Chinese, and Turkish – all operate in unique ways while forging links with each other. The police have difficulty penetrating these underworlds, yet these groups who exist within London are almost self–policing in that they try not to cause too much antagonism outside their own group.

"The character of Semyon is based on a real-life restaurant owner in New York. The character of Anna was written as a tribute to the midwife who delivered my eldest son at London's Whittington Hospital – which we later used to double as the exterior of the hospital location in the movie.

He elaborates, "The character of Anna was also my way of taking a conventional Londoner and leading her into this concealed world. Those two worlds don't often meet, let alone collide, so I came up with the emergency Caesarean section as a way to bring the midwife and an enslaved 14-year-old girl together in the thriller context."

"The sex-trafficking trade is a huge industry in the U.K.," reveals Webster. "Police records have shown that it is run predominantly by criminals of Eastern European descent."

Producers, and production companies, from Britain, Canada, and the U.S. joined forces to bring the script to the screen. Webster notes, "Steve tells accessible exciting stories, merging exotic elements into familiar environments. When I first read it in 2004, I felt the script was commercial, moving, exciting and castable. What we needed was a top director, which we finally got."

Cronenberg remembers reading the script and being "immediately sucked into this intense little world of the criminal subculture in London. In a sense, Steve has reinvented the crime movie, because the script accesses all the great parts of that genre while inverting and subverting them in an interesting way. It's not a retro movie; instead, it's very modern and intense.

"What I also found was that it offered a wonderful character study – particularly of Nikolai – and that I wanted to bring these characters to life."

Cronenberg began working with the screenwriter. Knight reports, "It was the perfect relationship between a writer and a director. David had a very clear vision, so we had a quite brief meeting and then I went off and did the work that we agreed needed to be done."

Producer Robert Lantos, head of Toronto-based Serendipity Point Pictures, had worked on two previous films with Cronenberg. The producer says, "David has a unique and magical gift. He creates a mesmerizing, hypnotic reality on-screen. Working with him is always a rewarding and memorable experience.

"It was David's passion for Eastern Promises that initially sparked my interest. Steve's powerful and timely screenplay, coupled with David's masterful craftsmanship, made for an irresistible combination." Lantos came aboard, and the film became a U.K./Canadian co-production, with the picture filmed on location in the U.K. and post-production completed in Canada.

There was only one actor considered for the lead role of conflicted Vory V Zakone foot soldier Nikolai Luzhin. Cronenberg muses, "When I worked with Viggo Mortensen on A History of Violence, I noted that he had a kind of Russian or Slavic look to him. He is in fact half-Danish. After our experience on A History of Violence, I wanted to work with him again. In reading the script, I immediately thought of him. Viggo is a brilliant actor, beyond what people realize, and I believe that with Eastern Promises, that is going to be more evident.