Emmanuel Itier: Is the movie a metaphor about how hard we have to work on ourselves as human beings and with each other?

Timothy Hutton: Yes, totally. I would think that you get to a point when you evolved where you can totally control yourself–like I was on and off smoking. But this is ridiculous: “Quit smoking!” I do have control, but there are too many excuses wrapped into what I could say: just starting a new movie or, “Hey, I stopped for three weeks so I can start again and stop down the line…” Yeah, life is tough work on ourselves…

EI: What was your attraction to this film?

TH: This is one of the rare scripts where you thought somebody got it right. Bob Shaye, Bruce, the writer–they were on the same wave line with the spirit of the movie, and they understood the original story that it’s based on. It’s also, for me, the idea about the loss of innocence and how kids are lost into all these gadgets that are available to them. One of the most telling scenes in the movie is when the kids are on this bus after school and everybody is involved with their e-mail or texting, or their gaming. No one is really talking to one another. And the fact that one kid can send the answer to a test over to the phone of his friend, and the use of all of these devices by kids–it’s eye-opening. And then, of course, there is this box washing ashore and how it opens their eyes. You know, I have two kids and there are precious moments in life. I remember when my 19-year-old was six, and I took him to Cape Cod to watch whales. I will never forget his look on his face when he saw a whale for the first time. There are moments like that in the movie, when the dad looks at his kid sending a golf ball at 300 yards. There is a real spirit about this film.

EI: Are you surprised that such an inspiring and positive film was made in such a cynical movie industry?

TH: Am I surprised that this movie is made or that the other ones are made? Yeah, I get it…I have a hunch that this movie is going to pull an audience with word-of-mouth into the theaters. It’s so different from the other types of movies. The special effects don’t look like any other special effects, and they are incorporated into the reality of the story. You get sucked into it. It’s the way Bob Shaye saw it in his head, and Bruce the writer. I think these other movies have numbed kids out. There are some great ones like “E.T.” or “Close Encounters”, and the effects they had on parents and kids alike and how people reconnected to something that matters. And this film, “The Last Mimzy”, has this quality to reconnect people to what matters. This film has an “old fashioned” story-telling quality to it–pure story telling and not falling for this idea that you need to have momentous moments happening every 11 minutes! This is not a formula movie.

EI: How was it to have the director be also the financier, the distributor…how was the catering on the movie? What was it like to have Bob Shaye direct?

TH: The first thing I thought is that the film was going to get released! And there will be money spent on P&A. Bob was always very good from the beginning with the entire crew. He was open to ideas and to anything else.

EI: But were you a little bit worried about him since he had not directed anything for quite a while?

TH: No, not really, because you have the process of reading the script and so you know when you hear him that he has a special connection to the material, and he really does. So you kind of do the math and you know it’s not a random thing on his behalf to go ahead and direct this film. He had a very specific choice to do this film, and once you meet him, you’re totally convinced about his vision. And on the first day of rehearsal and when he starts directing you, you know he has a vision–you know he is the director. It was a difficult movie to make to keep the reality level in focus. For example, with the scene when the sugar is lifting up from the bowl and floating in the air–we all had to pretend and look into the void, and Bob was really good at directing us, telling us what to do, exciting us. We all had a great time with Bob because he knows how to get a reaction from you, and the right one.

EI: How was it to work with special effects, especially with the climax of the film that is a huge effect-driven scene? Did you have fun with special effects?

TH: Well, it depends. In this movie, at the end, yes, I had lots of fun. It was fun pretending to be bouncing off this “invisible thing”, which, of course, was not there but added in post-production. You would run and something would pull you back, some sort of cable…it’s an odd feeling for the first time, but them you get used to do that. Other films I had done had lots of green screens, but not in this one. It’s hard when you do green screen, and it takes a long time to sometimes get the entire thing together, and it can be difficult and boring.

EI: How was it working with kids?

TH: Well, it can be difficult, but it’s all about spending time with them from the minute you arrive on the set in order to get along with them. Have lunch with them, ask them about the script, play with them between scenes. If you do the time, it’s not difficult at all because they learn to trust you, to like you. The kids were really great. They have different energies, but they are amazing.

EI: What’s coming next for you?

TH: Well, I just did “Brief Interviews With Hideous Men” with Julianne Nicholson, John Krasinski, Christopher Meloni and directed by John himself. It’s an independent movie. It was a great experience. I’m a professor at Julianne Nicholson’s college and I guide her with her thesis. And I don’t become one of the “hideous men”, but I go through a long confession about things I did in my life, with my wife, and she is gathering information about what men do to women. Then I did “The Alphabet Killer” with Elisa Dushku and Cary Elwes and Michael Ironside. It’s directed by Rob Schmidt, who did “Wrong Turn”, and it’s also an independent movie. It was a very dark experience, and now I’m doing a movie with Mira Sorvino in New York and it’s called “Multiple Sarcasms”.