8 Terrifying Villains You Didn't Realise Were Played By Great Directors

7. David Cronenberg - To Die For

Though he's responsible for some of the most recognisably outre films cinema has to offer, David Cronenberg is actually remarkably normal in real life. It's this very anonymity that's allowed Cronenberg to crop up in a few films in his time, without anyone recognising he's the guy who convinced an ensemble of actors to pretend to have sex in car wrecks. There have been notable acting appearances from big Dave in the likes of Last Night and Jason X over the years, but perhaps Cronenberg's creepiest performance comes in Gus Van Sant's black comic satire, To Die For. That's because Van Sant cast Cronenberg as the shady Man At Lake just so he could take Cronenberg's affable normalcy and twist it to spooky effect. At the end of To Die For, 'Man At Lake' pops up purporting to be a producer with media contacts for Nicole Kidman's troubled weather reporter Suzanne Stone. Really, he's an assassin only affecting an air of likeability so he can lure Suzanne to an isolated lake, where he'll soon drown her and leave the body to float under the winter ice.