Dennis Quaid, Leonardo Nam, and Sigourney Weaver in Vantage Point Courtesy of Sony

Was visibility a main reason for taking this small role in Vantage Point? To keep yourself out there?
Well, it would have been a good reason to do it, but that's not what I thought, though. I thought, "Oh, that's a very interesting person and job that I really know nothing about." And I admired Pete Travis's earlier film. It was like a good, old-fashioned thriller to me. I wish I had the kind of analytic mind that would create goals for myself and have a path, but I don't. It's such a quixotic business in so many ways. Sometimes the things you just sort of instinctively do turn out to be the most satisfying and the things you work forever on are difficult, but you know, it's just part of the thing. I feel that there's a little "agent angel" that brings things to me. [Laughs] I'm happy with how much I work and what I get offered.

In researching your news producer character, Rex, what did you learn about how these TV news people are trained to steel themselves in the face of a disaster like an assassination? Do they go emotionless, freeze up?
Well, they don't freeze up, their job seems to take over. What they want to do — the most important way they can respond, they feel — is to get a proper story out to the people. It's like a doctor, I think. To save a life, you're not thinking, "If this person dies, I'm going to be so upset." You just think about that later. You go [she bangs on the table] "Oh, man, there were so many times I thought I'd lose that patient!" It's sort of the same dynamic, I think.

So the training takes over.
I think so. I really think that's what they do. There is some part of them that must be thinking "I hope my husband, wife, child are all right." But if you listen to them on 9/11, that whole team — Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, Matt Lauer — I was so impressed by how professional they were. They were reassuring to us, and to me, they were quite selfless. Whatever they might have had going on personally, which I'm sure they all did, they were there for you and to give you the story and to make sense of this senseless thing. I was just blown away by it.

Is there any element of disappointment when you put all this work in and your character is left with very little screentime? Your character here certainly doesn't get much.
No, that was always the way. There were a couple more minutes in the room, but in fact it didn't really make sense because you shouldn't see these disparate, other, later elements of the story. It was the time to switch from her. I knew that going into it, so I actually think I have the perfect amount of screentime. I sometimes felt that when Dennis comes in, that the room should be abuzz with activity, and it wasn't — it just wasn't part of where they were going with it — so that was a little frustrating, because I don't think that's what would happen, but it was that kind of ... you don't get to go back to people, really. Forest's character a little bit, but I was the set-up.