I caught up with the Sean Penn-directed movie Friday night, then less than 24 hours later found myself face-to-face with the talented 22-year-old actor at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, where he was honored for "breakthrough performance."

Emile's character, a recent college grad who leaves it all behind to live in the Alaskan wilderness, encounters a lot of people along the way, played by the likes of Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook.

"What was great about it was I'd be going around and I'd be with all these different actors with different qualities and different things about them that were wonderful, and I would get to experience all of those and try and learn from them," he said. "(Keener) was terrific. You can never catch her acting. She's just that effortless and puts that much understated feeling into it."

But the co-star who clearly touched him the most was Holbrook, who has also been generating heavy Oscar buzz.

"It's so incredible - working with Hal," Emile said. "He would really be just so honest and so kind-of-naked in his performance. It all seemed so effortless. Really, that's master acting. To get to be there with such a kind, gentle soul as he is was really special and also a relief for me on the shoot.

"For the seven months before that, I had been running from grizzly bears and climbing mountains. Finally getting to spend two weeks with Hal was really a joy."
He was philosophical about the Golden Globes ceremony being effectively canceled due to the writers strike: "I think it's really hard. It's hard on the Globes. It's hard on the viewers. It's hard on the people nominated. It's hard for everybody.

"Unfortunately, it's just part of the process that the writers guild and SAG are going through in order to get what they want. I support SAG and right now we support the writers guild so that's the way it is."