For his part, Washington says, "Angelina's a wonderful actress." He recalls when the filmmakers first told him about their choice for Amelia. "Marty and Phillip called and said, 'We've got this girl, you've got to see her. You're going to love her. She's great.' And they were right."

As for her first introduction to the script, Jolie couldn't put it down once she started reading.

She recalls, "I was alone in my apartment, and it scared me to death. I couldn't stop reading it, and I couldn't forget about it when I put it down, which says a lot to me. It kind of haunted me."

As frightened as she was, Jolie was equally inspired by the romantic elements of the story. Of Rhyme and Amelia she says, "To me, theirs is one of the most beautiful relationships, if not the most intense love story I've ever done, because it was really based on their believing in each other. Their minds and their instincts and their souls. There was nothing physical."

For Jolie, some of the scenes in The Bone Collector were almost too real for her. "It got to me, when I first started to hear it, when I was alone in those rooms, and I would hear his voice saying "I'm here, I'm here for you,"" she says.

She continues, "We all find ourselves in our life completely alone somewhere, when only we can take care of ourselves in that moment and nobody else is there to help us, and suddenly you hear the voice of somebody say, "I'm here for you and I'll be with you every step of the way." That's like the greatest thing you can possibly imagine."

Bregman and Noyce looked at hundreds of actors for the important supporting roles. While he acknowledges that he is always very involved with the casting process, Bregman acknowledges that in this film it was even more essential.

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