How Gender-Swapping a Character Helped David Cronenberg Crack His Story

David Cronenberg on ‘eXistenZ’

Have you ever wondered where a director's inspiration comes from? Sometimes, the most unexpected real-life events can spark the most creative ideas.

For Cronenberg, it was meeting Salman Rushdie in London, while Rushdie was living under a fatwa, a death sentence, issued by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.

Basically, people wanted to kill Rushdie for his work.

Security was paramount, and their meeting was shrouded in secrecy. Cronenberg recounts his surprise when a London police officer, tasked with his security, hailed a regular taxi to take him to Rushdie's hidden location.

And that sparked Cronenberg's storyteller genes. He knew this could lead him somewhere.

Cronenberg thought: what if a video game artist, a creator of virtual worlds, was the subject of a fatwa?

This became the central premise of eXistenZ, which follows Allegra Geller, a game designer who is hunted by assassins while her latest virtual reality game, "eXistenZ," is being tested.

When Cronenberg started working out the initial script, he wanted a male protagonist. But the deeper he got, Cronenberg felt the story wasn't quite working. It was only when he made the pivotal decision to change the lead character to a female designer that the narrative "clicked into place".

The casting of Jennifer Jason Leigh as Allegra Geller further solidified this vision, bringing the character and the story to life and allowing him to find depth.

Summing It All Up

I felt like this story was a powerful reminder that inspiration can be found in the most unlikely of places. A secret meeting, a taxi ride, a change in gender of a character – do whatever it takes to freshen the idea and completely shake it up.