Despite a filmmaking career stained with the blood of inventively gory efforts like Videodrome, Rabid, Scanners and Dead Ringers, director David Cronenberg has no ‘history of violence’ to speak of personally. Admittedly, there was a brief stint as his college revolver club, but that soon lost its appeal when he discovered that he didn’t have the heart to shoot live targets. Thus the director – whose name has become almost an adjunct of gore, mutilation and horror – admits that his fascination with the brutal and the bizarre exists almost entirely within his head. Even Cronenburg shudders to imagine where he might have found a conduit for his warped imaginings should he not have switched to English literature halfway through a biochemistry degree at Toronto University some 40-odd years earlier.

Take for example one of his formative horror films, 1979’s The Brood, starring Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar. The director has long since confessed that it was the break-up of his disastrous first marriage and ensuing bitter custody battle that provided the inspiration for this gruesome tale in which biological mutation is a metaphor for emotional rage. “The Brood was my version of Kramer vs. Kramer, a film that...had a kind of happy ending. Not my version of that situation,” he said at the time, leaving one to only speculate on the scariness of a marriage gone wrong.

However, Cronenberg’s latest film, A History of Violence, has been largely lauded as the most conventional movie of his 35-film career – almost mainstream in its theme of everyday violence and how it lurks deep within us all, flourishing in even the most mundane vicinities. Cronenberg, 63, certainly thinks so: “Violence is something that is part of human nature and human history that demands exploring,” he says. “It’s in the newspapers and in our minds every day. So you artistically and creatively feel it’s something you have to come to terms with, and hope you deal with it in your creative life rather than dealing with it in your actual day-to-day life,” says the twice-married father-of-three, who admits to having been shocked by the actions of even his own family.

“Not in terms of hidden violence but more in terms of their not being who I thought they were - and these are the people we think we know better than anyone else; better than ourselves almost. I truly believe that there’s only so far you can go in knowing somebody else – actually there’s only so far you can go in knowing your own self.”

Cronenberg also had to get to know his actors. “I consider casting to be a black art,” he says. “It’s very complex because so many people are involved. When I came to the project, there were already people who had lists of actors that they thought should be the lead. And then you have a movie that costs $32 million, you have to have a cast that supports that budget. That’s just the game. Viggo was always on everybody’s list but we never had a first choice that was consistent, so you often have to get past the ‘Everybody wants Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe or Tom Cruise’ factor. But in this case, that wasn’t much of an issue because those guys normally get $20 million and New Line weren’t prepared to pay that kind of money to those kind of actors,” says Cronenberg who, it must be noted, historically passed on an offer to direct Top Gun.

“But Viggo was somebody who I’ve had my eye on for a long time and he seemed so right. I went out to LA in order to seduce him into doing the movie. It was a mutual seduction, I suppose – you have to decide you want to work together and that it would be a good experience. Viggo’s very picky. He’s not really thinking in terms of what would be best for his career. instead, he’s a totally down to earth guy who does what he thinks would be interesting for him at that particular moment.”

Spend even the briefest time with Cronenberg and you’ll discover that he’s about as scary as your grandmother; his softly-spoken demeanour totally incongruous to the often shocking themes of his movies. Indeed, his benign exterior almost poses more of a conundrum than his work. Truth is, he almost appears to get a perverse kick out of surprising unsuspecting journalists with his unexpected normality. Not that he’s ever likely to spoil the fun by admitting to his private game.

David, you’re a snowy-haired grandfather and all round likeable guy, so how does a fella like you become so fascinated by violence? “Well, I don’t really think I’m fascinated by violence at all,” he replies. “But I think that every artist is interested in extremes because you wouldn’t want to make a movie about a family where everything was nice and that’s the end of it. It’s just not interesting. It might be something you’d like to live but it’s not something you want to see in art. Things are revealed when there are extremes of psychological duress and emotional duress. I think all artists are drawn to drama. It makes sense. I don’t think that I’m more drawn to the violence in this movie than I am to the sexuality or the emotional drama. To me they’re all equally important and I wouldn’t have been interested in making this movie had it only dealt with violence. However, with a title like A History of Violence, you know that you’ll be coming to terms with the attraction and repulsion that most people have to violence – and it’s a study of that.”

In addressing the film’s highly provocative sex scenes between Mortensen and co-star Maria Bello, he makes no excuses: “Sex and violence have always gone very well together,” Cronenberg says. “It’s like bacon and eggs. If you look at the history of cinematic violence, you’ll see that there’s always a sexual component in violence and there’s always a violent component in sexuality. So, to me, that is just a natural thing to explore. Being a Canadian, I have rather different sensibilities about sex than my American compatriots. For example, in this movie, the sex scenes are between a couple who’ve been married twenty years and have two children. Normal American movies are totally not interested in married sex at all – it’s like, once you’re married, forget it! Your sex life is over! Teenage sex is interesting apparently but married sex is not, and I find it to be the reverse, quite frankly, having been married thirty years myself so...Americans just can’t deal with sex; they find it embarrassing, like it’s something to giggle at.”

Also known as the King of Venereal Horror and The Baron of Blood, the director has mischievously enjoyed cultivating his outlandish image over the years, though he’s the first to admit that nobody is fooled in his Toronto hometown where he both lives and works. “It’s true – nobody’s particularly scared of me,” he says forlornly. “But why should they be? I’m positively dull compared with my films. I’m someone who likes to ride my bicycle in the countryside. I have a place in the country so I like to do work around the house there. And of course I read all the time; I’m always looking at movies, and thinking about things. I don’t party much but I do enjoy travelling. I don’t do a lot of it that’s not connected with film but on those rare occasions when I’ve taken vacations I can definitely get into a Caribbean mode and enjoy myself on an island and take photos and go scuba-diving and do all tha stuff. I’m a big fan of bicycle racing. Riding a bicycle on a country road is nirvana for me. I absolutely adore it. I really enjoy the country. I’m a nature boy really.”

Next up for Cronenberg is the movie adaptation of Martin Amis’ novel London Fields, though there’s no start date in sight and casting has yet to begin. No stranger to litereary adaptations, Cronenberg has controversially brought Patrick McGrath’s Spider, William S Burroughs’ Naked Lunch and JG Ballard’s Crash to the big screen as well as adapting Stephen King’s The Dead Zone.

But A History of Violence might just prove his greatest hit to date, with some critics comparing it to Sam Peckinpah’s controversial 1971 film Straw Dogs, in that it focuses on how far a man will go to protect his family. “The specifics of the film were America, but the commentary on violence is universal,” Cronenberg explains. “Every country has a history of violence. Every country was founded on violence. Every nation exercises its self determined right to commit violence against other countries and even its own citizens. There is not one country that can claim it doesn’t.”