"The key ingredient in this film is Clint Eastwood," Robbins agrees. "Clint is a true artist in every respect. Despite his years of being at the top of his game and the legendary movies he has made, he always made us feel comfortable and valued on the set, treating us as collaborators and equals. We never got the feeling that he believed in his legend or asked us to honor it, although we did. It was a really great experience. There was never any kind of pettiness on his set; no screaming or stupid emotional displays from anybody, a very professional, adult environment. There is nothing condescending about the man or his crew and it invigorates you, making you feel like you did when you made your fist movie."

Robbins plays the deeply troubled Dave. "Dave is one of these guys who finds a way to survive and exist despite a past filled with horrific events," the actor muses. "Maybe what he should have done is left that neighborhood and started fresh somewhere, but he didn't. He's internalized his painful experience and not talked about it or dealt with it, so it has festered and festered for years. It's not particularly fun, going to that dark place for long periods of time while you're working, but fortunately, Clint provided such a professional and efficient environment to work in that it was a pleasure to be able to bring this character to life."

Haunted by the devastating events of his childhood, Dave stayed in the poorer section of town, working menial jobs and eventually starting a family with his wife Celeste. When Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter Katie is inexplicably murdered, the details of the crime slowly emerge and Celeste begins to break down under the weight of her uncertainty and dread.

Harden, who arrived in Boston early to immerse herself in the blue-collar world of Mystic River, felt a kinship with her character. "The story has an immediate, personal connection for me," says the actress, "because Celeste has a young son, and I'm a mother with a four-year-old daughter. It also greatly appealed to me because it questions that moment in life when innocence is lost."

While Dave was just trying to survive and get by, Jimmy followed a more turbulent route, developing into something of a criminal mastermind over the years. Running his own gang at the tender age of seventeen, he seemed untouchable. He married the most beautiful girl in the neighborhood and the two soon had a young daughter. Things might have gone on that way forever, until an associate rolled on him, ratting Jimmy out in exchange for a lighter sentence and condemning him to serve two years at Deer Island.

Tragically, his young wife was stricken with cancer while he was locked up, and when Jimmy got out he found himself a 22-year-old widower and the sole parent to a little girl who barely recognized him as her father. With 5-year-old Katie as his motivation, Jimmy determined to turn his back on his criminal past. Returning to the neighborhood to run a corner grocery, he re-married and had two other daughters. As their family continued to grow, Katie remained the light of his life. On the day she is found dead in Pen Park, that light goes out forever.