B.L. Your performance in this film is quite moving and thought provoking. Why did you want to play this tormented father?
T.W. Oh it's a very simple and rather sort of a primitive feeling when you read a script. Basically what you do is read it and then in your mind — and sometimes even physically — you go, oh yes I can do this, and that's the simple test. You read it and you think, I know how to do this; I think I can play him really well. That's it.

B.L. And you did do it well. This guy goes through quite a transformation in the film. Did you draw on anything to play him? I would think this was emotionally draining to do?
T.W. No, no it isn't. Your sustenance in this situation is the script and if the script is telling the story, well, that is your inspiration and you do not need to go somewhere else. It's a combination of your own sense of the world and what is in front of you on the script.

B.L. What appealed to you about this character?
T.W. An interesting long journey, isn't it, for a man who is a doctor? He was happy and then suddenly their lives are struck by catastrophe — a kind unimaginable to most people — and just seeing how people respond to that.

B.L. You have some pretty amazing scenes with Sissy Spacek, who plays your wife. What was it like to work with her?
T.W. Easy. All good actors are easy to work with. Its the ones that aren't very good that tend to be very difficult. We fit hand in glove from day one and it was a great privilege to work with Sissy. She's a legend.

B.L. How did you develop your relationship with her?
T.W. We met a few days before we started shooting and did some rehearsing and hung around some of the sets. Todd, the director, wanted us to familiarize ourselves with the setting of where we were filming. Where the film is set is exactly where we filmed, so it's like a documentary in that sense. So we got to know each other three or four days before we started filming and that was just fine.

B.L. There's a very poignant scene in the film when your character and Sissy finally burst from grief, so to speak. What was the momentum for that scene and how much did the director allow you both to do what you wanted?
T.W. It was all scripted. Todd, also being an actor, is very easy to work with. The scene itself, we did rehearse it. What made it difficult is because it takes place in four different spaces in the house, so of course you couldn't do it in one go. You had to do a little bit and then wait for a bit and then do another bit of it in a different location and that all takes time. I think we spent a couple of days doing it. We did it a few times, different pitches.

B.L. A movie like this really makes you think. I have two young sons and god forbid anything should happen to them I don't know what I would do. It's a moral decision obviously, and that is clear for your character when you see the film. What's your take on what he does to avenge his son's death? What would you do in that situation?
T.W. I don't know, I'm really not sure how I would take it. It's a very severe examination of who you are, something like that. You don't really know who you are until something like that happens to you...Revenge is something that seems to be so deeply seated in human nature, and I wouldn't want to say I would be above that.