Hallstrtom worked hard to understand Quoyle's character and believes one of his strengths, as a director, is his ability to identify with the misfit. "My attraction to depicting outsiders has to do with the fact that I have been there, on the outside," Hallstrom replies. "I can relate to it and recognize it. That is one main reason why I tell stories — to have people recognize their inner feelings, to receive confirmation that they are not alone in the world." There is a little underdog in everyone, and in The Shipping News it is nearly impossible not to root for Quoyle.
The filmmakers eliminated a few of the novel's subplots and peripheral characters; for example, Quoyle has two daughters in the novel and only one in the film. However, Quoyle's on screen depiction remains true to Proulx's characterization. "The Quoyle character may be a bit more of an awkward man in the novel," Hallstroim notes. "We suggest that there was more potential in Quoyle from the very start, a potential that was forced under the surface by a childhood of abuse." Healing is happening just under the surface with Quoyle. Quietly conveying this to an audience as an actor is extremely difficult.
Spacey acknowledges the unique acting challenges that the role presented, and credits his director with helping him to navigate difficult emotional terrain. "I felt that I had never in film played a role that was quite like Quoyle. There isn't an ironic, glib, or cynical bone in his body. And the challenge of the role was that he's not a character that is actively trying to do anything," continues Spacey. "Life just keeps happening to him, so it's a very reactive role."
Hallstrom knows how to draw an understated performance from his actors and draw upon the nuances of a story. "Inhibition is a big issue for Lasse — non- confrontation, inhibition and a kind of silent rage against that," Holleran imparts. "The simplicity, the elegance of a single act defining a relationship — a hard-edged father tossing a clinging child into water to teach him to swim — had great import for Lasse. There are people, certainly from generations past, who might defend this kind of parenting — you know a sort of 'tough love', don't coddle the children, brand of toughness is best for kids in the long run. But Hallstrom has a different vision of how to treat children."
Known to have a deep empathy for children, "Lasse can always relate to, in a very visceral way, the pain, torture and humiliations of childhood. It's a theme he revisits in all of his movies," Holleran observes. He uses deep empathy for Quoyle's experiences as a child, to more fully understand who he is as an adult.
Revealing all the strains of history and the revelation of deep secrets proved to be one of the great challenges of telling this story cinematically. All involved in The Shipping News were concerned with how to explain Quoyle's family history and how to subtly capture the essence of the complex place from which they come. "Early on in the development," Holleran says, "we discussed incorporating Quoyle's past, the dark history of his family and dream sequences into the present day narrative. From a savage background comes Guy Quoyle, who begets our protagonist, a wholly different, almost evolutionary man. Here now is a Quoyle who can barely fend for himself in the smallest of ways." The audience can imagine the parent that Guy was and instantly recognize why Quoyle has grown to be a meek man.
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