Actress Heather Wahlquist nostalgic during her return visit to Seminole

She planned to visit Seminole but got more than she bargained for.

Actress Heather Wahlquist, 32, traveled from Los Angeles to her Oklahoma hometown for a friend’s funeral this month. Seminole is where Wahlquist got her start before snagging supporting roles in "The Notebook,” "John Q” and her latest effort opposite Cameron Diaz and Alec Baldwin in "My Sister’s Keeper,” a film co-written and directed by Wahlquist’s fiance, Nick Cassavetes.

During her visit to Seminole, Wahlquist said she drove past her childhood home and wanted to see her old room. She began playing with the idea of gathering enough money to buy back the house. Wahlquist approached her old house but said she was startled by the sight of the home’s owner. She drove away with a dose of nostalgia.

In Los Angeles, Wahlquist is raising Barbarella Cassavetes, 4. Life is scheduled, and Wahlquist is not friends with the parents of her daughter’s friends. Her upbringing in Seminole was different, she said. Everybody knew everybody. She played in creeks, got scared of stories about catfish attacking children, and visited lakes.

"(Lakes are) what I miss most about being home, pretty much, but we don’t get that (in Los Angeles),” Wahlquist said. "We have shark-infested oceans. It’s not quite the same.”

Wahlquist’s latest role as Diaz’s sister in "My Sister’s Keeper” is more intense than any lake water in Oklahoma.

"Definitely, you could feel a black cloud looming because of the subject matter,” Wahlquist said.

In "My Sister’s Keeper,” Wahlquist’s character’s niece (Abigail Breslin) sues her parents for control of her body because she refuses to donate her kidney to save the life of her sister who has leukemia.

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