Do you go into a project like this aware that the
subject limits its appeal?
Absolutely. I mean, it’s not “Lord of the
Rings.” I put the same
amount of heart and soul into a $100 million movie as
I do a $3 million movie. You have to. You can’t just
deliver your performance based on the size of the
budget. But there’s that risk and that’s the effect of
it, basically, that I made on the picture.
How did this script get to you?
What happened was…the script came to me in a very
strange way. I was down in the Carribbean and I was
walking up the beach and I ran into this guy that I
kind of knew a little bit. Not in the movie business,
I knew he wasn’t in the movie business. He was in the
real estate business and he said to me, “Kevin, do me
a favor. Do me a big favor,” and he sent me the script. He told me the name of an actor who was attached to it and he said, “They tell me that it’s going to be
an Academy Award-winning movie. I don’t know, I can’t
tell from this, but they want me to invest in it and
I’ve never invested in a movie before in my life. My wife said don’t do it.” He said, “Can you tell me if
you think it’s any good?” Very uncharacteristically I
said yes. I was in a good mood. It was Christmas, the
sun was shining, I gave him my address [and] he sent me the
script.
I came back January 2nd, January 3rd. I sat down, “Oh, ‘The Woodsman,’” read the script, my jaw dropped. I said, “Honey, you’re not going to believe this. I know I’m not looking for another indie. I don’t want to do something dark, I want to get paid. But I think I’ve found something that I have to say yes to.” She read the script and said, “Yeah, you’ve got to play the part.”
I called up the producer and we sat down together. At that point they weren’t really… I think they were kind of stuck. I think they had been through a bunch of actors - for obvious reasons most people turned them down - and I think they sort of said, “Look. Let’s see if we can pull some money together…” And they said, “We’ll do it with unknowns.” They budget had been kind of slashed to where it is now and he said, “You’re crazy. Why would you want to do this?” And that was the producer! I said, “Look, you know, I’ve got to. I’ve got to do it.” So he said, “Well, what about Kyra?” Now, the director always had Kyra as her first choice, coincidentally, because of a movie she did called “Personal Velocity.” I went back to her and said, “Take a look at this again and tell me what you think about playing Vicky.” She said, “Look, you know, you could get somebody better.” She didn’t want to do it with me. She thought it would get in the way, but we talked her into it.
What kind of research did you
do for the role?
Well, let me first say that I did not spend any time
with sex offenders. When I played a Marine, I spent a
lot of time with Marines. But it’s not something that
I didn’t feel like I was going to be able to learn
anything that was going to influence me, because I
don’t think you can really pick these guys out in a
crowd. I think it’s they come from every single walk
of life and socioeconomic background, and I wasn’t
ready to go there.
Nicole had done a lot of work, research, clinical case histories, psychological studies, all of that was very helpful because she laid a lot of that on me and I was able to read that. Then I did what I do for any character, which is an autobiography. I actually sit down and write it. You know, start with his history and his past and started answering questions, some of which I get from the script, some of which I just kind of make up on my own. After all that, think about the way that those internal things are going to manifest themselves in terms of his external life, hair, make-up, wardrobe, teeth, whatever it is, dialogue. And then think about the 12 years in prison and think about how that’s going to affect his, let’s say his first relationship with a woman. That’s going to have a pretty damn big effect on him.
