On Movies: Worthington moves from 'Avatar' to thriller 'The Debt'

With as much humility as he can muster, Sam Worthington wants to correct the notion that James Cameron's Avatar is one of the biggest hits in Hollywood history.

"It's the biggest," he says, answering a question about how it feels to be the star of one of the most successful - no, make that the most successful film in the annals of moviedom.

"You can't really fathom it," he says. "It was a changing point in my life, that's for sure. Not only getting the job and working with Jim, but everything that surrounded it. Avatar turned into an anomaly, basically. . . . When you look at the box-office figures and then try to turn those figures into how many people actually saw that film, it's beyond comprehension."

It's safe to say - and no slight intended - that The Debt, opening in theaters Wednesday, will not be the biggest hit in Hollywood history. A taut thriller about a trio of Israeli Mossad agents on the hunt for a Nazi war criminal, The Debt is also a love story and an opportunity for six actors to share three roles. Worthington, Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life), and Marton Csokas (The Tree, with Charlotte Gainsbourg) are the young Israeli agents dispatched to East Berlin in the mid-1960s to capture "the surgeon of Treblinka," living incognito and working as an obstetrician. Ciarán Hinds plays Worthington's character, David, 30 years later. Helen Mirren is the older version of Chastain. And Tom Wilkinson has the part played by Csokas.

Directed by John Madden, The Debt toggles back and forth from one story, and time, to the other, revealing the dark secrets these characters share. And before things turn bad back there in 1966 East Germany, the three dedicated young spies played by Worthington, Chastain, and Csokas could be doing Jules and Jim - Jules and Jim with micro-cameras, codes, and guns.

"That's the thing, the triangle is great," says the Australian actor. "You get the extrovert, the introvert - my character - and the woman they're competing for. That, to me, is what the movie is about. These three people each have their own demons that they want to lay to rest, and they think this mission will help them achieve some satisfaction. Of course, it doesn't, and then we see the ripple effect that it has 30 years later."