What do you think about the overall theme of the
movie?
I feel like it is a kind of disease and a kind of
addiction. I think that it is something that
cannot be cured in the traditional sense. That’s
part of Walter’s journey and his struggle that he
thinks he’s done the crime and he’s done the time and
it’s all behind him. I think what he realizes at the
end of the movie is that this is something that he’s
going to have to deal with every single day of his
life, in the same way that an alcoholic is always going
to be an alcoholic. He may not be drinking, but he’s still an alcoholic.
Do you feel like this film is the exception to what normally happens to people in his position?
What happens to him? Well, I think it’s a little bit
obtuse at the end of the movie what is going to happen
to him. [spoiler deleted] I think
that at the beginning of the movie he kind of feels
like he is the victim, which couldn’t be further from
the truth. And I also think that he thinks it’s all
behind him, it’s all in the past. It’s hopeful in that
I think he’s starting to get some kind of
self-awareness and realize that it’s something that
he’s going to have to deal with, but it’s definitely
not wrapped up in a neat little bow…
What do you think is the realization that Walter comes
to in order to be able to move on?
Well, I think when he sits with the little girl and he
hears her start to… I think he sees himself, in a way. For the first time he steps back and sees himself looking in, and he sees her talking about what’s going
on with her father. And all of a sudden, it’s like he
really gets it. I think he gets it for the first
time.
How difficult was that scene to play?
Very difficult. And it was very difficult process
because while when I first read the script, I knew how
to play one moment in that scene. I knew it, I felt
it, I heard it. I knew how to do it. I didn’t know how
to do the whole movie, but I knew how to do this one
moment. But everything around that took a lot of work,
because there were parts of the scene that I really
didn’t like. And while I had a very wonderful and
collaborative relationship with Nicole, the director
who developed the screenplay and wrote it, we also
went to bat quite a bit on that scene. It went
through a lot of rewrites up until the point where we
shot it. Then we shot it and everything went wrong - tons of airplanes, it rained, some kid on a f***ing motorscooter that was riding around the park. It
was a rough day. And then the scene went through a whole bunch of transitions in the editing room. It’s actually much shorter than what we shot, much
sparser. But at its core, that moment still works.
How did you make the little girl comfortable?
I worked with kids quite a bit in kind of rough
situations, between “Sleepers” and “The River
Wild.” I did a movie called - I can’t even
remember what it was called. Just I’ve been in
situations that have been kind of difficult for kids,
and what I like to do is make it as clear as possible
to them that I am not that guy, and they are not that
person. That we are actors and we’re going to pretend
together. That we are going to be colleagues and roll
up our sleeves and act off of each other.
I talked about my little girl and tried to make her feel as safe as possible. She knew exactly what the screenplay was about. Her mother knew exactly what the screenplay was about. She knew exactly what the scene was about. She worked with Nicole and we spent one rehearsal together, so I think when we got to shooting I think she felt safe. And I think, personally, that’s when you’re going to get the best work out of an actress, young or old.
