UNITED KINGDOM: Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick and Will Reiser on "50/50" red carpet at the 55th BFI London Film Festival

Record ID: 220266

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick and Will Reiser on "50/50" red carpet at the 55th BFI London Film Festival
  • Date: 14th October 2011
  • Summary: FANS SETH ROGEN, ACTOR, ARRIVING AND SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS ROGEN TALKING TO JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) SETH ROGEN, ACTOR, SAYING (IN RESPONSE TO HOW DO YOU MAKE CANCER FUNNY): "I mean to us it was really trying to be as honest as possible, to the experience that we had, you know. We're all comedians, me and my group of friends and Will's (Reiser, screenwriter) a comedy writer. So when he got sick we just found that comedy was our way of dealing with it, and I think in general if you're a comedy writer you kind of tend to see the humour in the situation, and as sad and scary as what Will went through was, a lot of funny, awkward, absurd stuff kept happening. We thought it all seemed like other movies had been avoiding it, rather than us adding it, you know. It just seemed more natural that way."
  • Embargoed: 29th October 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom, United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: People
  • Reuters ID: LVAEFE5H7ZY5V1BWDBXBO0NQYOJS
  • Story Text: Actors Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick and screenwriter Will Reiser walked the red carpet at the 55th BFI London Film Festival on Thursday evening (October 13) for the gala screening of their comedy drama "50/50".
    Inspired by Reiser's own experiences, "50/50" is an original story of friendship, love, survival - and finding humour in unlikely places. Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Kyle (Rogen) are best friends whose lives are changed when Adam is diagnosed with cancer. If Adam is ill equipped to deal with this shocking news, Kyle is even less so, though he offers medical marijuana and advice on how to get a sympathy hook-up.
    Adam, whose also dealing with a girlfriend and Mum variously freaking out, tries to take a methodical approach, keeping his emotions firmly in check. So he is less than delighted to be sent to counselling with Katie (Kendrick), a well intentioned but inexperienced therapist.
    Asked how you make cancer into a comedy, Rogen said things around him at the time of Reiser's illness just seemed humorous and they just wanted to be honest.
    "When he got sick we just found that comedy was our way of dealing with it, and I think in general if you're a comedy writer you kind of tend to see the humour in the situation, and as sad and scary as what Will went through was, a lot of funny, awkward, absurd stuff kept happening," he said.
    "We thought it all seemed like other movies had been avoiding it, rather than us adding it, you know. It just seemed more natural that way."
    Rogen said he enjoyed working with Gordon-Levitt, who joined the cast just a week before filming began. Straight away, they bonded and formed a working trust, thanks to one scene, in particular Rogen said.
    "We did actually shave his head, and I did actually shave part of it, and that was the first day of filming, which is very trusting cause who knows how it was going to go (laughs)," Rogen said.
    "I mean, he's one of the best actors I've ever worked with and he is really, it was a very risky performance and a very risky movie in general, and the fact he jumped into it the way he did was really incredible to watch."
    Kendrick said her character Katherine or 'Katie' tries to do and say the right thing to her patient Adam, but often fails.
    "I think what's interesting about her is at first she's sort of just another obstacle that our poor hero has to overcome. You know, she's supposed to be helping him and she's not at all," Kendrick said laughing.
    "What I found so interesting about that was it could have been, you know, a completely unbelievable character that was just there as a kind of plot device. But I just loved seeing, you know, their relationship break down, you know, into a friendship and to really see that these people are at a point in their lives where they really need each other and they can really learn from each other," she added.
    For Kendrick, the experience of working with Reiser and the subject matter taught her a lot she said, particularly how to confront any real-life situation dealing with cancer. Kendrick said she relied on the screenwriter for advice in portraying her role, but learnt a valuable lesson.
    "It's one of those things where it's inevitable, like it (cancer) will touch everyone's life, and I just try to take away, you know, the lesson that I hope I learned from this, which is everybody wants to say the right thing but no one really knows how. Maybe the best way is to treat someone the way you always did. So I will try and keep that in mind," she said.
    Reiser said he found writing the screenplay very cathartic, and had best bud Rogen alongside him on the drafts. Six years ago, Reiser found the experience, like that of Adam's, of having a giant tumour growing along his spine, like a roller coaster of emotion.
    "It was difficult and it was trying and it was hard and it was tragic at times, but it was also, there was also a lot of absurd, funny moments and I, you know, I saw so much dysfunction in my own behaviour and the people around me and the people I love and, you know, my friends and family members," he said at the red carpet event.
    "It just, all I could do was laugh when I was sick at how crazy it was, and the doctors and the nurses, I mean, it just. It seems so foreign when you haven't gone through it."
    One of the positives to also come out of the film, says Reiser, is the reaction from cancer survivors and patients who has said to him that "it's the first movie they feel that accurately depicts what their experience was like."
    Reiser added he hopes that the film "reflects real life and people can see that and appreciate it."
    In the film, Rogen's character Kyle uses his friend's illness as a chat-up line to get the girls. Asked whether Rogen did the same with Reiser when out on the prowl, Reiser suggested it may have got Rogen up the aisle, finally.
    "I did introduce Seth to his wife (Lauren Miller), and I do think that that did help. I don't think she would have married him had I not had cancer. I think it very much painted a sympathetic portrait of him, so I think that helped," joked Reiser.
    However, in reality, the screenwriter admits that:
    "We were both too terrified of women to approach them and use my cancer to meet them."
    Directed by "The Wackness" director Jonathan Levine, "50/50"'s cast also includes Bryce Dallas Hall as Adam's girlfriend Rachel, Anjelica Huston as Adam's mother Diane and Philip Baker Hall as Adam's cancer patient friend who first offers him a marijuana-laced macaroon in chemotherapy.
    Gordon-Levitt won the 'Actor of the Year' Hollywood Breakthrough Award at the Hollywood Film Festival this year for his portrayal of Adam.
    "50/50" is released on November 25 in the UK, and is playing in theatres in the U.S. now.
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