Finn Wittrock On His Character’s Smaller, Odysseus-Like Journey In ‘Westhampton’ [VIDEO]

Finn Wittrock does his best work onscreen to date in Christian Nilsson’s atmospheric, deeply affecting feature Westhampton, which world premiered at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival and is currently showing in theaters, via Obscured Releasing.

The ubiquitous, versatile actor plays Tom Bell, a guilt-n-angst ridden filmmaker who reluctantly yet willfully, returns to the titular town he grew up in to screen his new, semi-autobiographical movie. But the townies aren’t happy to see him—an understatement. As a teen, Tom was involved in a tragic car crash, and the scuttlebutt is he fled the scene leaving his severely wounded girlfriend to fight for her life. He proceeded to leave town for good.

Now he’s back and Murphy’s Law seems to be ruling his weekend with doors not opening and being boxed into small spaces. He can’t get into his childhood home to pack up his things. Worse, he runs into his former bestie Dickie (Jake Weary), the brother of the girl he left for dead, now a cop who is out for blood – Tom’s blood.

His former teacher, Mrs. Lucas (a wonderful Tovah Feldshuh), plays a key role in allowing Tom to purge some of his anguish.

Nilsson intercuts Tom’s current story with scenes from his black-and-white, 16mm fictionalized film to great effect.

The filmmaker also allows the camera to linger on Tom’s battle-scarred face—which, later in the film, is quite literally scarred. And, with little dialogue, we can sense his fear, pain, frustration and confusion. He desires some kind of redemption, absolution. Wittrock’s subtle, quiet, nuanced work is emotionally shattering.

The Julliard grad has been consistently crafting outstanding work in all three mediums for over two decades.

His TV appearances began in 2003 with an episode of Cold Case and include stints on ER, CSI: Miami, Torchwood, Harry’s Law, Criminal Minds and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He played Damon Miller for three years on the ABC soap, All My Children,and had a recurring role on the acclaimed series, Masters of Sex.

He became part of the Ryan Murphy TV universe with the Emmy-winning HBO ensemble film, The Normal Heart. Significant roles followed in the American Horror Story anthology series with Freak Show, Hotel, Roanoke, 1984 and Double Feature as well as the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest prequel, Ratched.

The thesp received two Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for American Horror Story: Freak Show and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

He made his feature film debut in Joel Schumacher’s Twelve (2010). Other film credits include: Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014), Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken (2014), Eric Bilitch’s The Submarine Kid (2015, which he co-wrote), Adam McKay’s The Big Short(2015 SAG Award nomination for Outstanding Cast), Damien Chazelle’s La La Land(2016), Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), Rupert Goold’s Judy (2019), Adrian Lyne’s Deep Water(2022), Lily Rabe & Hamish Linklater’s Downtown Owl (2023) and Ava DuVernay’s highly underrated Origin (2024).

On stage, he made his Broadway debut in the 2012 Mike Nichols directed revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, where he played Happy opposite the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Willy Loman and Andrew Garfield’s Biff. He won both the Theater World and Clarence Derwent Awards for his performance. Nichols first noticed Wittrock when he appeared in the Signature Theatre production of Tony Kushner’s The Illusion, in 2011.

He also appeared as Tennessee Williams’ anti-hero Chance Wayne in a 2012 production of Sweet Bird of Youth at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre with Diane Lane.

He returned to Broadway to share the stage with Sally Field and Joe Mantello in Sam Gold’s version of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie in 2017.

Wittrock’s last theatrical endeavor, to date, was the Los Angeles production of the Danny Robins play, 2:22 A Ghost Story in 2022.

He has a number of upcoming films including Hershey, Mark Waters’ bio drama where he plays the founder of the titular company, Milton S. Hershey.

Westhampton will be available to watch on Apple TV on July 31st. 

The Contending was delighted to chat with Wittrock.