Cronenberg loves new film's 'exaggeration of satire'

In this exclusive clip director David Cronenberg talks about shooting in Los Angeles for the first time with his new movie "Maps to the Stars." Focus Features

Even though he's been making movies for decades, director David Cronenberg finally made it to Hollywood with his latest cinematic effort.

The 70-year-old filmmaker filmed his first scenes ever in America for his new film Maps to the Stars (opening nationwide Feb. 27), a satirical drama about a show-business family and its hunt for celebrity starring John Cusack, Julianne Moore and Robert Pattinson.

So for a movie about the movies, of course Cronenberg went to Los Angeles.

"That's the heart of darkness so it's fantastic. But of course it wasn't darkness because it was tremendous fun," Cronenberg says in an exclusive featurette from the film featuring a conversation between the director and screenwriter Bruce Wagner.

Wagner, whose novel Dead Stars was based on his Stars script, has known the filmmaker for a while, but admits that "I'd felt like I'd won the lottery" collaborating with Cronenberg. And it was Wagner's dialogue that drew in Cronenberg, adds the director: "The stuff that makes it work is the human relationships on a very naturalistic evil — the exaggeration of satire."