More of this Feature ADDITIONAL INTERVIEWS: • Erika Christensen (Madison) • Shiri Appleby (Amy) ADDITIONAL "Swimfan" INFORMATION: • "Swimfan" Production Photos • "Swimfan" Trailer and Websites

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Director John Polson describes "Swimfan" as "a morality tale about a guy who's got everything going for him and the world at his feet, including a girl he's completely in love with and a career ahead of him that's going to be magic. Then one day he makes one mistake - but it's a big one."

Jesse Bradford stars as Ben, the guy with a promising future who makes that one huge mistake. Bradford took on the role immediately after wrapping production of "Clockstoppers." Though he wasn't eager to jump right into a new project, the script for "Swimfan" quickly changed his mind.

JESSE BRADFORD (Ben Cronin)

You spend a lot of time in "Swimfan" wearing a Speedo. Did you have to pass a 'Speedo' test?
Yeah, right (laughing). No, there was some talk that went in to it. Topics like shaving and tans and things like that got discussed. It was best to just bring them out in the open, I think. I ended up doing none of the above. I ended up shaving my chest because I thought it would contribute to the look, and also make me look a little younger. I was tempted to lay out in my Speedo, just for my own personal vanity. Then I said, “You know what? F*** that. Ben would not do that in a million years.” And so, I can't do that. So I've got the milky white thighs.

What types of training did you do?
I went through significant swimming training. I swam everyday. As soon as I found out that I was doing the movie - as soon as it looked like it was coming together - I got in the pool. That was a month and a half before we even started shooting. At that point in my life it was really the only thing I felt I had to do, on any given day - or every given day, I should say - was swim. If I swam, then I was all good.

I probably starting off at 20 minutes because I could barely do it at first. That's not to say that I don't know how to swim, but it's different. Swimming is different than plowing along doing lap after lap. I would get exhausted after 6 laps and need a break. I felt like there's a big difference between the way a guy who spends all day in the gym looks, and the way a guy who spends all day in the pool looks. So I felt like really that was the only way to do it, was to swim - and really swim. I started off taking a break after a couple of laps [and] ended up reaching a point where I could do 70 laps straight through without a break. Not at an Olympic pace obviously, but nonetheless, it was arduous.

Is that actually you in every swim shot?
We had a double but what ended up happening was, we had the double there basically the first day that we shot anything in the pool. Then we'd have him there sometimes for times when you really couldn't see my face anyway and I was exhausted or they needed to prep me for the next scene, but they [also] needed to get shots. So we had a double who was a far, far superior swimmer to me by like a million years but I guess the general consensus once dailies came back after that first day, was that to the camera my s**t looked just as good as his. Looked - but it wasn't actually. They said, “You know what? We would rather use you.”

I'm not even sure if there is any time when it's not me - not counting a couple of the stunt things. The actual swimming, maybe there's like one or two shots where they used this guy who was my double. Who, don't get me wrong, could whoop my a** in a race - that's not the issue. I put a lot of time into the form. The fact that they told me that my swimming looked good enough was a vindication for me. I really worked hard on it.

Michael Douglas (“Fatal Attraction”) was one of the producers on "Swimfan." Did you watch his movie or other films with a similar theme?
I ended up not watching it. I ended up getting a copy of the movie very early on during rehearsals. I literally didn't watch it. I was like, “You know what? Maybe I shouldn't watch this. Maybe I should just kind of remember the vague things I remember about the film and just leave it alone so that I'm not making these conscious connections. Just let it exist as it's own thing.” I don't want to muddy things. I ended up watching the movie months after we shot “Swimfan,” and it's a great movie. I didn't even really think of it in terms of “Swimfan.” Once I'm done with a movie, I really try to put it away. I watched it on my own months later, maybe even half a year later.

You didn't watch any movies for inspiration for this role?
No, I didn't look at movies for inspiration. I don't know what I looked for for inspiration, but it wasn't the movies.

You have 2 very attractive co-stars in Erika Christensen and Shiri Appleby. Can you tell us about them?
They are great. We all had a really good time making the movie. I live most of the time in New York whereas they were kind of displaced to New York and so we would all go out. We'd just go out to dinner all together or go out to clubs and dance and drink and get stupid. We went out and had a good time. I think they are both talented and they both bring a lot to the movie so it all worked out excellently.

And the big question - why does your character, Ben, cheat?
There's a little more explanation of that if you add in a scene or two that didn't make it in to the final cut of the picture. The way I see it, I obviously had to do a lot of justifying for that because he's supposed to be so happy in his relationship. You know how a couple of things can happen in your life that all of a sudden change the way you're looking at things and scare you and make you feel like you've got this kind of last chance or something? That's kind of how I see it with Ben. He's real happy with his girlfriend and then she says, “Let's go to school in the same city and live together.” And he goes, “What???” Like good idea but at the same time, not exactly what he was planning on. She's ready to give up her school to come and live with him and go to a lesser school just to be with him. I think that puts him at a point right there where he's at a crossroads a little bit. Like, “What am I focusing on in my life? Just how much am I focusing on it in my life? What's right and what do I really want out of life?” I think her suggesting that she ditch out on her dream and follow him instead, I think that really sets him up in a position where when something like this happens, this new girl comes to school and is clearly interested in him, I think he didn't want to cheat so much as he just got a little scared. He got a little scared of the commitment that he got himself involved in. I think he needed to ask himself a couple of questions. Rather than ask himself a couple of questions, he got suckered into acting on his newfound sort of insecurity.

Another thing that bolsters that is the rivalry that he has with Josh - the character played by Clayne Crawford, the #2 guy on the team. Josh makes it very clear that he's interested in Madison and I think that Ben kind of took that as a cue to not really be interested in Madison per se, but knew that Madison was a little interested in him. He kind of wanted to one-up him. Ben's obviously a competitive guy. His whole future is based around his competitive nature. So there was a little bit of that, too. That certainly didn't hurt his desire to end up with Madison, or to experiment.

You obviously opened up a can of worms here. I'm talking forever about it. I had to do a lot of justifying to make it happen. The main question to me was why does he do it? Why would he do it if he's so damn happy? I think that's why, right there.