Casting a movie like The Road proposes several challenges. Finding The Man has been met; Viggo Mortensen should have the role well in hand. Finding a capable and compelling set of actors to play the few other humans in the flick is more difficult, since the spare, harrowing story could easily be hurt by a bunch of recognizable faces.

Then there’s the Boy, haunted and yearning for the guidance of his father. He’s like Mitch Taylor in Real Genius, but younger and more hungry. It’s a tough, demanding role, and one that is in 90% of the film. Not a lot of down days for the kid.

Now, thanks to the Hollywood Reporter, we know that Kodi Smit-McPhee, rumored since last fall to be playing young Logan in Gavin Hood’s Wolverine, will be the boy in Cormac McCarthy’s story. The young guy’s had good notes for Romulus, My Father (stills from which actually echo The Road) but other than the Wolverine casting rumors, he’s an unknown quantity.