“I’m very mindful of over-intellectualising certain scenes that really require a level of immediacy”: Mia Goth, Alexander Skarsgård and Brandon Cronenberg on Infinity Pool at Berlin Film Festival 2023

Very little is off the table in director Brandon Cronenberg’s seductively cynical Infinity Pool, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth. As such, it makes sense that very little would be off the table at the Berlinale press conference for the film, which tells the story of failed novelist James (Skarsgård) and his entertainingly anarchic exploits in a country that allows a clone of the perpetrator to be punished for any crime committed by that perpetrator. One of the first questions posed to the cast and crew by The Upcoming’s very own Selina Sondermann was about a brief scene featuring the climactic adventures of a piece of the male anatomy – or at least the convincing prosthetic that recreated it.

When asked about the substance that was expelled during the climactic part of the sequence, Cronenberg deferred to his special effects team, saying, “You know, I actually don’t know. It was Dan Martin who designed the semen, and in fact, the first time we did it, it kind of got gummed up in the cock, so it didn’t really work and we had to reshoot the cock with different semen.”

Skarsgård added, “I got to sample it, and it was kind of salty and a bit sweet.”

“Yeah, he never got the flavour quite right,” continued Cronenberg. “The texture eventually got there.”

“Texture was great”, agreed Skarsgård. “Flavour was… it leaned a bit too heavily on the salty side, I wish it were sweeter. Still delicious though.”

The Swedish actor was asked about his preparations for the role, and confessed that he’s not a fan of excessive planning. “For me, the bulk of the work was in pre-production – working on figuring out James’s journey, these pivotal moments in the screenplay. There was kind of a cerebral approach to it, I think, and then conversations with Brandon, and then we had, I guess, almost a year before we started shooting the movie, just discussing the character and the story. I wanted to get to a place where once we jumped in and started shooting – I wanted to get out of my head, and I didn’t want to think about it. I just kind of wanted to throw myself in there and see what happened. Because it’s so visual, and there’s so much happening, and I felt if I’ve done the homework, and it’s back there hopefully somewhere, then I can just be open to whatever happens on the day, and I wanted to be that vulnerable and fragile and open. Because again, he’s quite a reactive character for most of the movie, so I wanted to leave everything open to just see what happened on the day.”

The Northman star continued: “We often didn’t over-rehearse. Sometimes I like rehearsing scenes, especially if they’re very technical, or sometimes if they’re super dialogue-heavy – I find it helpful. But this was very emotional, and an emotional reaction to something. Often we didn’t even block the scene; we were like, alright, this is it, and let’s just start shooting – and we did. It gives you an opportunity to really explore something for the very first time, and for Brandon to really capture that, and for everyone to be a bit surprised. I found that quite interesting.”

Mia Goth was in agreement with her co-star about wanting to keep some spontaneity in a scene. “The work is the work, regardless of the kind of movie you’re in. The preparation that goes into building a character follows a similar blueprint from project to project, and like Alex is saying, you do the homework so by the time you get to set, you can hope that everything you’ve been working on for the last few months will just serve you as you’re navigating what that scene is eventually going to look like. So these bigger moments that you reference – you can talk about it a little, you can touch it, you can discuss it, and walk around the subject a little, but I’m very mindful of over-intellectualising certain scenes that really just require a level of immediacy and newness and freshness. If you start dissecting it and bringing in technique, you can kill it before you get to set. So I’m very aware of that and just hope the work that you do in preparation in the lead-up to that scene will serve you.”

With the number of explicit scenes in the film, and the wonderfully depraved nature of some of these sequences, Cronenberg was asked by The Upcoming’s Sarah Bradbury if he used an intimacy coordinator during the shoot for Infinity Pool. “We did have an intimacy coordinator on this one. It was my first time using one – just because it’s sort of a new role or it’s becoming more common,” said the Canadian director.  “From my perspective, it was helpful on this one. I’ll defer to the actors here in terms of whether it felt safer or better.”

Referencing Possessor, his well-received most recent horror effort, Cronenberg continued, “In the previous film, they were nude scenes in sex scenes but it was not involving a huge number of people, so it was sort of easier to have those conversations about where everyone’s boundaries are, and making sure that everyone was comfortable with how those scenes were designed. But in this case, there were a lot of people and it was not just group factors, but there are also body doubles for shots, and so just having someone tracking all of those people and having those conversations with that many people and then being able to say, ok, here is where everybody is comfortable; here is how we can design those scenes within those boundaries everyone has. From my perspective, that was useful.”

Goth confessed that she doesn’t have much use for intimacy coordinators: “I actually don’t find intimacy coordinators very helpful, but I do think that I’ve been incredibly fortunate with the types of filmmakers that I’ve worked with. You see Brandon: he’s just the sweetest most gentle spirit really, and that has a trickle-down effect on everybody; the cast and the crew that comes together, there was really a familial group of people, a bond that we created, so sometimes it’s better to just do the work rather than talking around the work. I’ve been in instances where I have to ask my co-star if I can touch his shoulder, and then give him a hug, and that’s actually far more uncomfortable than just doing the scene and being able to if something feels off or something’s not clicking the way that it should. Then it’s incredibly valuable to have somebody there who is the appointed person, but sometimes it’s just better to just get into the work and then take it from there.”

Naturally, Skarsgård was asked about a memorable sequence where his character has to behave like a dog. With a poker face, the actor told the packed Berlin press conference, “I was a dog for three months, naked in Stockholm, leading up to that sequence, just to get to know the mannerisms and the movements of dogs. I would go to dog parks every day, I would hump old ladies in the street, just take a shit on the sidewalk – just the kind of stuff to embody a dog. I don’t mean to brag, but I think it paid off in the movie.”

Oliver Johnston
Photos: Selina Sondermann

Infinity Pool is released nationwide on 24^th March 2023. Read our review here.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.

Watch the trailer for Infinity Pool here: