Australian actor Sam Worthington moves from hero in Avatar to heel in Massy Tadjedin’s Last Night, a searing drama about unravelling relationships and infidelity.
Over the course of a few hours, four people make decisions that cause each other great pain. Worthington plays Michael Reed appears to be in a solid marriage with Joanna Reid (Keira Knightley), so his sexual encounter with a determined third party comes as a shock.
“You can be in a relationship and look at someone else and wonder if they’re boring or wonder what would happen when they go down that path”, Worthington said. “This is the bit where they put their foot to the throttle.”
But it takes more than curiosity for him to go down that road.
“The first thing he’s does when he gets home is he starts watching sports while his wife is making herself beautiful,” he says. “He doesn’t notice her until four scenes in. To me that sums up his relationship.”
Worthington acknowledges that the audience may not find too much to like about Michael.
“My character is the least sympathetic. I wanted to be less sympathetic than I was in the film. He’s a complacent husband who is weak,” he said. “When the carrot’s dangled in front of him, he takes it. To me out of all four characters, he is the least sympathetic. I didn’t really dig any of the four of them.”
The carrot in this case is Laura (Eva Mendes) a work colleague, whom Micheal takes a business trip with.
