Behind the Scenes of 'My Sister’s Keeper'

Nick Cassavetes wants you to know you’re going to die.

And not only is it okay, “It’s beautiful,” says the director. 

Cassavetes is an imposing man, standing 6’6, vibrating with intense charisma, dripping with tattoos, sporting closely shorn salt-and-pepper hair and pulsating with passionate explosiveness, it’s hard to be sure if he’s going to give you a bear hug or beat you to a bloody pulp. Having followed in both of his legendary parents’ footsteps, first as an actor, like his mother, Gena Rowlands, and more recently as a director, a la his late father, actor-turned-independent film and cinema verite pioneer John Cassavetes, the junior Cassavetes has a new title: King of the Tearjerker.

Having proven his mettle with The Notebook in 2004, Cassavetes’ latest offering, My Sister’s Keeper, based on Jodi Picoult’s bestselling novel, is a movie so diabolically emotional, it’s aftermath could be used as a Bounty commercial. The film stars Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric as parents dealing with their daughter’s debilitating cancer. In order to keep Kate (Medium’s Sofia Vassilieva) alive, they genetically engineer a second child, Anna (Abigail Breslin), whose bone marrow, blood and organs can keep her sister alive. After eleven years as Kate’s lifeline, Anna decides she’s had enough and sues her family for medical emancipation, reclaiming her life but potentially ending her sister’s.

See why you need a quilted-quicker-picker-upper?

For Cassavetes, the story was intensely personal. His second daughter, now 23, was diagnosed with congenital heart disease when she was just a week old. For years, that meant hospitals, doctors and the constant fear of losing a child, an experience he calls “temperance on my soul.” While his anger toward the medical industry was unleashed in John Q, My Sister’s Keeper is a deeper, more rooted story that isn’t about illness as much as it is about “a family captured in their imperfection.”

“Families aren’t logical,” Cassavetes explains. “Families are emotional. If things were so pat, it wouldn’t be worth exploring.”

“Family is so important,” Cameron Diaz, beaming sunshine and star power, chimes. “What drew us all to this movie was family.”

Cassavetes and Diaz have been friends for over 15 years and their affinity is palpable. While Diaz might seem an illogical casting choice as the mother of three teenagers in a gut-wrenching family melodrama, Cassavetes says he’s offering audiences a peek at the real Diaz, the one he knows and loves.

“I’ve been knowing Cameron for a number of years,” the director drawls. “I see her in comedies and that’s not her. The fact that she can make people laugh is the first thing people jump to.” Instead, Cassavetes feels Diaz is destined to be one of her generation’s great talents, if given the chance. “Remember when Tom Hanks was doing Bachelor Party and Nothing in Common and then he decided to make serious films? People were so mad at him. They were like, ‘Come on, dude! You can make me laugh.’ It’s such a rare commodity for people to make you laugh, it’s what you expect.”

“It was such an enriching experience on a level that was totally new for me,” Diaz offers on her role as an unyielding, unsympathetic, obsessively loving caregiver.

As for the emotional toil the film will inevitably take on audience members, Cassavetes shrugs and says, “I think people go to movies for all sorts of reasons. Escapism is great but there’s room for all types of movies. Just because I don’t direct movies where helicopters explode, that doesn’t mean those movies are bad, I’m just interested in people.”

While he laughs and jokingly trumpets himself when dubbed “King of the Tearjerker,” he quickly replies, “You know what, I’m proud of the movie and I don’t always feel that way. My job on a film is one thing, quality control. Sometimes I do a good job and sometimes, not so much. The point of this movie is not to make people cry it’s to make people understand that life is beautiful and we’re all going to die, and that’s beautiful, and not only that, it’s all okay. If we have an emotional experience along the way; mazel tov.”

My Sister’s Keeper opened nationwide June 26th.