Viggo Mortensen and Kodi-Smit McPhee play a father and son lost in a ruined world in John Hillcoat's film adaptation of "The Road"

Credit: The Weinstein Company

I've always been a fan of Viggo Mortensen's work, at least since the first time I really noticed him in a film back in "The Indian Runner," which nailed me to a wall.  One of the things that I enjoyed most about watching the "Lord Of The Rings" phenomenon explode was seeing the general public discover Mortensen on a level that had never happened before.

Since then, he's had several big moments, most notably his collaborations with David Cronenberg, and now he's about to find himself back in theaters in the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's piercing, difficult novel The Road.  While I was in Toronto, I had a chance to sit down with both Mortensen and his young co-star, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and ask them about the process of working together to create a believable father-son relationship onscreen.

A quick note... we're not in control of the technical side of these interviews, so sometimes we find ourselves working with whatever we've got when we leave the room.  In this case, I am baffled by the sound mix on this thing.  My microphone was evidently taped to one of my buttcheeks based on how muffled I am when talking, and Mortensen is such a soft-spoken guy in real life that even if they'd put the microphone inside his mouth, I'm not sure it would have been much better than this.

His answers are still worth a listen, though.  Just crank it up after the film clips end:

"The Road" opens in limited release next week, and we'll have a short interview with John Hillcoat, the director of the film, sometime between now and then. 

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