John Magaro wants a new definition of masculinity.

“I grew up in the Midwest, in Ohio, in Cleveland, during a time when jobs were going away, when the idea of masculinity for these blue-collar guys was being shaken to the core,” he told TheWrap. “I know how hard it is for them to reach out for help.”

This struggle drew Magaro to “Omaha,” a film directed by Cole Webley and written by Robert Machoian that opened in theaters on Friday after first premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Magaro leads the film as a character simply known as “Dad,” who takes his two children (Ella and Charlie) and dog on a road trip across the Midwest after losing his home amid the 2008 economic crisis.

“I love that he’s just called Dad. I think that there’s something in that. It really shows this perspective, from Ella’s perspective,” he said. “I love that he’s kind soon through this child’s eyes as the mystery that often our parents are at that age. I think about when I was that age and so much I didn’t know about who my parents were because you just see them as survivors. Then when you see that shaken and that confidence sort of betrayed, it’s so world-shattering for a child.”

Magaro went through this experience himself around the age of 12. The actor, raised in Ohio as the son of teachers, saw his own father like most kids see their parents: a strong, unphasable, respected authority figure. It wasn’t until he grew up that Magaro would learn about the battles his father kept secret from him — particularly a battle with alcoholism.

“It was something that my mom would talk about, they ended up splitting up, but we didn’t really know it. This was a secret, and much like Dad in this film, he never asked for help. He was from a generation where you don’t ask, where you didn’t do that. You didn’t show weakness,” Magaro said. “Again, like it does with Dad in this, his problems over time caught up with him.”

“Now, obviously as a parent, I know that. I know how flawed I am as a person. But it really is world-shaking when you see your parent as anything other than this pillar for you, this iron pillar,” he continued. “He never was able to ask for that help he required.”

Living in the quiet

“Omaha,” distributed by Greenwich Entertainment, came to Magaro at an interesting time. Winding down from shooting “September 5” in Germany, the actor (who’s already starred in 20 films released this decade) wanted to take a break, take time away with his family. Once two of his friends insisted that he take a look at Machoian’s script, Magaro quickly put the idea of a break away.

“This is an amazing story. These are rich characters. This is something I haven’t done before. By the end, I was just left devastated and I knew I wanted to be a part of it,” he said. “Then I talked to Cole, and Cole’s just as cool as everyone says he is, and I had to do it.”

“Omaha” may be Webley’s first feature, but Magaro already loved Machoian’s “The Killing of Two Lovers,” a 2020 Sundance indie starring Clayne Crawford and Sepideh Moafi. The idea for “Omaha” rattled around in Machoian’s head all the way back in 2008, when the effects of the economic crisis at the film’s center were at their most profound.

Beyond the thematic center of “Omaha,” Magaro found himself drawn to its overwhelming quiet.

“I am just a believer in film where a lot lives in the silence. I came from a theater background, and in theater that’s really something you don’t get the opportunity to do. So much is in language,” “I think that’s what makes film so special, is that so much can live in what’s not said. Whenever I get to play those roles on film, I relish those opportunities.”

Magaro fills his filmography with the quiet. The actor has become a Kelly Reichardt regular, a frequent indie performer. The reason for this predilection, he said, is simple: those are his favorite kinds of movies.

“It allows for more complicated characters,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than realizing you’re kind of stuck playing the same note over and over again, so letting yourself be surprised by your character makes those couple of months shooting a lot more fun.”

Fathers and daughters

Magaro cited “Train Dreams” as his favorite film of 2025, a movie that intersects with both “Omaha” and his own life in interesting ways. Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar’s Best Picture nominee stars Joel Edgerton as a man whose work takes him away from his family for long stretches of time. Each time he returns home, he laments that his daughter feels like a new person.

“My daughter changed my world,” Magaro said of himself. “I love nothing more than her. It’s so hard right now: I’m shooting in LA and every moment away from her is just devastating. She’s six now and she changes every time I get to go home and see her.”

These feelings are made manifest in “Omaha,” where Dad fights to create positive memories for his children as their lives lie on the edge of great change. Molly Belle Wright stars as Ella, the older sibling who begins to sense that there’s more going on with Dad than she or her brother can understand.

“I probably would’ve come at it more from Ella’s angle before I had a kid if I was reading it. Now, as a dad myself, I couldn’t help but just fall into that world,” Magaro said. “You just see all of these horrible things that you hope to never go through play out. Unfortunately, this is a true story. This was based on a true thing.”

When Magaro first saw the script for “Omaha,” he was a young father himself, placing him further in the shoes of Dad.

“It’s easy to let those tears well up … when you actually are a father. I would’ve been curious to read this script before I was a dad and how I would’ve reacted then. It certainly resonated with me in a very immediate way,” he said. “It’s just something that changes, and I think parents who watch this feel exactly that same way. Not that there isn’t something there for people that don’t have a kid: We’ve all been kids and we all have parents.”

A country in crisis

In “Omaha,” Magaro portrays a man lost.

As the effects of the 2008 financial crisis loom, Dad struggles to find the right path for his children. How can he take care of them without regular employment? Does a better life for them exist in Omaha? If it does, does he fit into it?

“He doesn’t (know what he’s going to do). He knows he has to get to Nebraska. It’s so haphazard, this planning. He knows he has to get there because there’s this out or whatever it is, but in each moment he doesn’t know what’s going to happen,” Magaro said. “What keeps the audience interested is that he doesn’t even know where he’s going, so it’s almost impossible for the audience to get ahead of it.”

It’s a story deeply rooted in the past, one that, despite releasing almost 20 years later, could not be removed from the 2008 setting it was conceived in. At the same time, the financial difficulties of this bygone era are far more familiar today than Magaro would like.

“We live in a mania of someone who just changes his mind and acts kind of like a drunken sailor at any moment,” Magaro said. “I don’t think we’re living in a world where finance and the way people are living are playing by the rules of rationality anymore because there is no rationality in leadership in America.”

“What I do think is we continue to see kids separated from parents and children being separated. Although it’s different in this modern incarnation, those core feelings I think are probably very much the same. People do things for their children seeking a better life only to be separated from their children.”

Magaro said he doesn’t like to think of films like morality plays or cautionary tales, stories with clear and easy lessons for audiences to take away. As times become tighter in America once again, however, he does hope that viewers can see a story like “Omaha” and realize, as his character does, the value in asking for help when you can.

“This is something else I like to address in characters that I play, this new perspective of masculinity and what it means to be a man in this modern world. I believe that asking for help is something that my generation and newer generations are less afraid of,” Magaro said. “It was something that (my father) was never able to do, and I have since been able to find.”

“Omaha” is in theaters now.