Well, as a personal rule, I think a great way to decide if I like a movie is to see the movie, but I also didn’t know if adding my voice to the fray might deter that possibility. I didn’t know if, several years from now, our movie was going to be put on lampsandtirescleaningservice.com. We had no idea what was going to happen.

How did you feel when you learned that the movie was — for the time being — canceled?

The most evil cell in my brain is thinking, “Will I be 80 and coaxing the UPS delivery guy into my house to show him production photos of my canceled movie, sobbing into his sleeve?” But I’m not interested in that narrative.

A couple days after the movie was canceled, my dog died. That felt way more meaningful than any sort of dull sadness over my IMDb StarMeter.

Now that you have come full circle and “The Hunt” is getting released after all, do you still have the same enthusiasm for the project that you did at the outset?

I think the entertainment business flies on the idea that if you just keep running, right around the corner is Eden — a paradise where you just keep trying to be the thinnest, youngest, memoir-chapter-iest version of yourself, and the next role is going to open that door. The sooner we all agree that is a fallacy, I think the more interesting all of our work will be.

In some ways, this cancellation cut out five more years of me chasing a thing that doesn’t exist. I love what I do, and I want to continue to be an actor, and I want health insurance and appetizers and the fleeting moments of catharsis punctuated by moments of self-loathing. But I know that there’s nothing on the other side of the door, and actually, the hallway is where it’s at.