Traveling Companions: Q&A with Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana

Time and Again

LHJ: What was most challenging about this role for you?

RM: Clare struggles with fantasy versus reality when she finally meets Henry in real time. It's kind of complicated because she meets a different person than the man she originally fell in love with.

EB: Henry is a lot of different ages throughout the film. Essentially we tried to simplify it stylistically into two time periods -- before his life with Clare and after he's met her. I saw Henry as a complicated character, but at the same time, I wanted to keep it reasonably simple. The first Henry was a younger, carefree person who didn't really have to deal with the ramifications of his situation other than how it affected him. The older Henry was dealing with different moral issues and implications. He was a more mature person who was also wary of what the consequences would be of a personal relationship. To a degree, I wanted the audience to be able to see the Young Henry in the Old Henry and the Old Henry in the Young Henry.

LHJ: Audrey Niffenegger's book is so revered -- did you feel any added pressure to please the book's fans?

RM: What's great about the film being based on a book is you get some 400 pages of information about the character and it's all valuable. Robert's main focus with the film was Henry and Clare's relationship.

EB: I think it is really important to stay faithful to the intention of the source material.

LHJ: In the spirit of the film, if you had the ability to travel back in time, where would you go?

RM: I would like to go back to see what my parents were like when they were kids.

EB: This is a very easy question for me to answer. I race cars back home when I'm not shooting, and I'm a mad period racing enthusiast, so I feel like I was born about 20 or 30 years too late. So, I would like to be in my mid 20s and travel back to 1955 -- which was the greatest year for car design and motor racing -- and race against Stirling Moss.

Originally published on LHJ.com, July 2009.