The great Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard finally gets to play a robust sex symbol and not a dirty old bugger who drinks too much. He plays William, the writer who chases after earth mother Marie. He gets to be paternal with children, carnal under the sheets and even a little befuddled when trying to speak of matters of the heart. It's a far cry from the shark bait he played in Deep Blue Sea . An even less predictable choice is William Fichtner as Aaron, a businessman who courts Marty.
Nice guys finish last, except in romance novels.
Fichtner is best known for playing grimy thugs, or the scumbag cop in Go , or the quirky blind scientist in Contact . I don't think he's ever played a normal fella, but he's got a sort of young David Strathairn working everyman thing going on. Think Krzystof Kieszlowski as interpreted by Hollywood hack du jour, Ron Bass. Ron Bass, of course, is the Man Who Couldn't Stop Writing, having penned What Dreams May Come , Stepmom , Entrapment and Snow Falling on Ceders . He's a one-man factory of melodrama.