Initially, a doctor told the Tarrytown, N.Y., native that he had lymphoma. For a week, he thought he was terminal. But after submitting to numerous tests and seeing, by Reiser’s estimate, a dozen doctors, lymphoma was ruled out, the tumor was found and the surgery scheduled. If he hadn’t been fearless and persistent, he says, he might not have found the true cause of his illness so quickly.
“My producing on ‘Ali G’ really prepared me for navigating the cancer train,” he quips.
While Reiser puttered along, wearing a back brace and attempting to regain his strength post-surgery, he and Rogen talked frequently about how the whole life-altering Big C experience — with its sobering reminders of mortality mixed with cringeworthy questions from acquaintances about Reiser’s bucket list — could be made into a motion picture.
“It was never, like, as simple as we’ll just make a movie about what’s happening,” says Rogen, who co-produced “50/50” — the title refers to Adam’s alleged odds of beating his disease — and helped develop the script. “It was, you know, a nerdy Jew gets cancer and becomes a hit man.”
Eventually, Rogen and Reiser realized that the best way to tell the story was as honestly as possible.
“We don’t need to have him be a hit man,” Rogen says they concluded. “We can just have him work at NPR.”
So in 2008, Reiser created his pseudo-alter ego — Adam the soft-spoken public radio producer who finds out he has neurofibrosarcoma — and wrote the script. While many plot points synched up closely with Reiser’s experiences, others were fictionalized. Adam goes through chemotherapy; Reiser did not. Adam’s father in the film has Alzheimer’s; Reiser’s does not.
At Kyle’s urging in “50/50,” Adam attempts to pick up women by telling them he has cancer. Reiser and Rogen never did that, but Reiser points out that during his illness, he did set Rogen up with Lauren Miller, to whom the “Green Hornet” star is now engaged.
All those elements, whether based on actual events or merely inspired by them, seem to ring true for some fellow cancer survivors who have seen the finished cinematic product. “50/50” recently screened here in Washington at an event sponsored by Live Strong, Lance Armstrong’s cancer advocacy organization. Tamika Felder, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at age 25 and has been free of the disease since 2006, was in the audience that night. While she says a few minor details may be a tad off — Gordon-Levitt’s character would have lacked eyebrows after all that chemotherapy, for example — “50/50” still struck a chord with her.
“I want[ed] it to show what we go through as young-adult cancer patients because how often do we get an opportunity to get our voice heard on the big screen in such a real way?” says Felder, an Upper Marlboro, Md., resident who started her own nonprofit, Tamika & Friends, to raise awareness about cervical cancer prevention. “And I have to tell you, from the time that movie started playing, I could not believe it. I could not believe how accurate it was.”
“50/50” has been getting strong early reviews and was warmly received earlier this month at the Toronto Film Festival. But responses from fellow survivors such as Felder are what have most surprised and gratified both Reiser and Rogen.
Reiser remains in good health. He’s beginning work on a screenplay called “Jamaica,” based on another autobiographical experience: the time he took a vacation with his grandmother, found out they had accidentally been booked at a couples resort, then realized she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.
Jonathan Levine, who directed “50/50,” is already attached to direct. And Rogen jumped on board again as a producer after the pleasant experience he had with Reiser on “50/50 .”
“I’ve lost friends writing scripts with them,” says Rogen, “and I’ve gotten even closer writing scripts with them. I’m happy to say I got closer with Will writing this one.”
The Post Most: LifestyleMost-viewed stories,videos, and galleries in the past two hours
Loading...
Comments