(Spoiler Warning: We don't usually put these on interviews, but some of the themes of Tom McCarthy's The Visitor don't fully come to light until well into the film but have to be discussed in any interviews about it. If you want to see this excellent film completely spoiler-free, bookmark this page and come back. You won't regret it.)

You may not be able to immediately put a face with the name, but it's almost impossible to imagine that a film goer or TV watcher of any regularity isn't familiar with the work of Richard Jenkins. For just a glimpse of this gifted Chicagoans range, check out his best work in Six Feet Under, North Country, The Man Who Wasn't There, and Flirting With Disaster. All the way back to Silverado, Jenkins has been one of the most consistent actors in Hollywood for two decades and it took to the age of 60 for him to get the part of his career in this week's The Visitor by writer/director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent). In the brilliant film, Jenkins plays a professor who comes home to his rarely-used New York apartment to find that it's been rented without his knowledge by young couple. Instead of putting them on the street, Jenkins' character makes a series of crucial decisions that will forever intertwine him with not just their lives but that of one of their mothers, played by the striking and elegant Hiam Abbass (Paradise Now, The Syrian Bride). Both Jenkins and Abbass sat down with The Deadbolt recently in the Windy City to discuss the themes of their excellent film and even how they've been reflected in their own lives. For context of the interview, you should know that a major plot point of the film involves the detainment of an illegal immigrant. We want to walk delicately without giving too much of the film away - it's truly better the less you know - but that's why immigration became a theme of the interview.

THE DEADBOLT: What have the responses been like at festivals and have any of the responses surprised you in any way?

RICHARD JENKINS: I'm always surprised when anybody likes what one does. You're always hoping. I was surprised when we first started - but we now get this question at almost every Q&A - and that's "Do Walter & Mouna see each other again?" It just never occurred to me that this would be THE question but every single time, in one form or another. A woman last night said, "I think you got her address." And I said "What is it?" She had this scenario but it's great because it means that they're really interested in these people.

THE DEADBOLT: And that the movie has life before and after the credits.

HIAM ABBASS: Exactly. I think it's great really to have ended the movie there, which means that the movie stays with people. These characters really get into their hearts and they sympathize and identify with them. It's great. For a while, it's there, and their individual stories make people think about the context of the movie. Talking about last night, I was really moved, because we did this panel with one detainee who got asylum and he's Afghani and he couldn't really even express himself in English. His lawyer was with him and he was trying to tell us about his cases and it was kind of like, for me, "What am I doing here? He should be talking about his experiences." Once you get to know the personal stories of people, suddenly you see what impact it makes on others and I think this is what was really clever about the way Tom attacked that subject - talking about people and not talking about issues.

RICHARD: He did say something last night that stuck with me. Tarek [one of the characters in the film] is in detention for a short while but you could see the change in him and last night, [the lawyer] said that "This man - he's different now from when he went in too."

HIAM: It was very moving.

THE DEADBOLT: Did you speak to any of those people before filming or go to detention centers yourself?

RICHARD: I did. Tom said "I think you should go to talk to one of these guys." It's weird because you think that you're using it as research and that's weird to be going there, but we did. I talked to him and I just listened to him talk for half an hour. And he talked about everything. He hadn't talked to anybody for a long time! Nobody was there to listen to him. It was sad. It's just a sad deal.

THE DEADBOLT: As long as we're on that subject, let's talk about pre-production, can you both talk a little bit about how you prepared?

RICHARD: Well, nobody knew each other. That was interesting. We all were thrown in.

HIAM: I still don't know you. [Laughs.]

RICHARD: But you know what I'm going to say. [Laughs.] We've done these so many times.

THE DEADBOLT: I'll try and keep it fresh.

RICHARD: No, it's good. Actually, most questions are really good and interesting. It's more that, after a while, we're like "I wish we could find a new way to say answer this."

THE DEADBOLT: You have done countless ones of these for this movie with so many film festivals. Do you get tired of talking about it?

RICHARD: I haven't.

HIAM: No. Me neither. It's really funny because, as Richard says, the reactions have been so different every time. Every time we're on another trip. Like the trip last night, for me, was so important to go through. I haven't seen [a detainee] before. I don't think my character really needed to go there, you know? Richard often talked about his experience when he met that man and he just sat down and listened and he said "You're there. You're listening. And you have nothing to say." And yesterday I had exactly the same feeling. In fact, even if you're understanding his words, you can't process it feeling-wise and yesterday I really understood what he meant.

RICHARD: He looked so broken. And he was granted asylum.

RICHARD: Pre-production. Rehearsal. So, we were thrown together and Tom used the time about as well as I've seen anyone use rehearsal time. Like Hiam, who I didn't know, was playing this woman that she probably understood better than Tom at the beginning because of the culture and the traditions. There was a lot of questioning. He wanted to know. She would say "I would not do that here." After a while...[to Hiam] I have to tell him this story...she calls me "Habibti" at the end, which is a very personal, loving thing to do and she said [in rehearsal], "I just can't call anyone that." I said "So, you're not going to say it to me." She said "I don't know." [Laughs.] She said "We'll see when we get there." [Laughs.] It cracked me up. I thought "This is great." Because, for an actor, it's not giving away what's going on emotionally. I loved it. I felt like I was an audience member. "But don't you think the two of them kind of get together, Hiam?" [Laughs.]

HIAM: It's a process that we really needed. Rehearsals permit a lot of that thinking. When I met Tom first, he was still writing and he had this desire to work with me and I think that it was, for both of us, the same thing. He wanted Richard and he wanted me. I met him in Paris out of context completely and he had nothing to offer me but asking questions. So, I think the process of questioning went on and on until almost the last day of shooting. He was still writing. He had the idea and, I think, by the time he met me, he knew that Richard was in it.

RICHARD: I didn't know.

HIAM: I think you already had your dinner together and you already read something. I don't know exactly where I came but I knew about Richard and he said "I would like to work with you. I have this story that I'm still writing." And he would just tell me little bits about it. Not much. And he would say "I really wanted to meet with you, wanted to know you, and ask you a few questions." And the questions would go for TWO HOURS. And then he calls me again and we meet for another two hours before he leaves Paris. And I went out of there not knowing what he wants from me because it's really not a classical way of approaching an actor but I really loved the guy for that. We really connected on a different level. A lot of his questions would be like "Not YOU, but if an Arab, traditional woman would be in this situation, what would she do? How much of the tradition would she guard? If she's a Muslim or if she's a Christian would it be any different?" We thought about all of these aspects before and I still didn't know who his character was until three months after that he sent me the script and I discovered that a lot of what we were talking about was there.

Visiting with Richard Jenkins and Hiam Abbass Page 2