Movie star JOHN CUSACK didn't have to dig too deep to find tears for emotional scenes in his new movie GRACE IS GONE - he just thought about families who had lost loved ones to the war in Iraq.

The actor, who plays a struggling father coping with the death of his soldier wife, admits the tears cinemagoers will see on the big screen were for real he didn't have to act upset.
Cusack explains, "You cry it out when the camera's rolling, which I did a couple of times. There's no faking it. You have to go to that place or the scene doesn't work. I just try to think of so much suffering going on and I live such a blessed life on so many levels.

"For this film, I just put myself in someone else's shoes, with as much respect and as much passion as I can. Then, maybe, you're saying a prayer for the soul of the departed. I'm just trying to honour the grief that people are going through.

"I think about all these lives and these generations that are changed from each person that's killed or maimed or wounded on both sides of this insane conflict. I'm just so grateful that it's not me or any of my immediate loved ones, but then you think, `Well, what if it was my sister or my brother?' and that's when the tears come.

"It just gets to you. I'm just processing my anxiety about my country and what's going on in it."