LONDON (CNN) -- Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung met on the red carpet in London Tuesday. Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender play the founding fathers of psycho-analysis in David Cronenberg's latest film "A Dangerous Method." They were joined at the British premiere by actress Keira Knightley as a patient who impacts both of their lives.
The film is set in the years before the first World War and charts the relationship between Freud and Jung from instant friendship and mutual respect to disaffection and division. Viggo Mortenson plays Freud and says, "People have a lot of preconceived ideas about them, they were psychiatrists, they were pyscho-analysts, they didn't get along - or I'm more in favor of Jung or I'm more in favor of Freud and if you ask people to describe in detail why they feel that way or what it is they know you find they know very little."
Michael Fassbender plays Carl Jung and says, "They are 2 heavyweights and very revered within their fields but you also just see them as flesh and blood and human weaknesses."
Keira Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein, a disturbed young woman who comes to Jung as a patient and eventually becomes one of the world's first notable female psychoanalysts, following what Cronenberg calls "an intellectual ménage-a-trois". Knightley says, "I think that most of the times when you play characters there is something that links you to that character. You understand on a emotional level, or you've been in a similar to it. . With this one there was absolutely nothing. So it was a question of building the character from the ground and try to learn as much as possible".
Viggo says, "I think their importance was that they talked about things that people didn't speak about. The things that psycho-analysis - the science pioneered by Freud - spoke about - human behavior - was something that until the 19th century was seen as the job of religion."
Fassbender says, "These two men and their teachings are intrinsic to our everyday speech: introvert, extrovert, these weren't words that were being used back then and they're part of our everyday speech today."
"Ego" is another term that remains as a legacy of the work done by Freud and Jung. And as awards season gathers momentum towards the BAFTAS and the Oscars, there may be plenty of material to entertain the mind of such eminent psychoanalysts.