HILARY SWANK-ALS FILM Hilary Swank plays ALS-stricken woman in "You're Not You"

Record ID: 707752

  • Title: HILARY SWANK-ALS FILM Hilary Swank plays ALS-stricken woman in "You're Not You"
  • Date: 18th October 2014
  • Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS EMMY ROSSUM, SAYING: "I take responsibility for nominating Hilary for the Ice Bucket Challenge, I did it first, and then she did it, and I think it is amazing that we raised a lot of money, but I think that hopefully this film will give you a good cry, and really show the human side of this. And it's really this nonromantic love story between these two women who are such unlikely friends, who kind of come together and inspire each other to live the lives they've really wanted to lead."
  • Embargoed: 2nd November 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5KDX4DFBSA0I9IYOUHQ9UWFHV
  • Story Text: She won two Oscars by slimming down to play a transgender man and beefing up to play a female boxer, and now Hilary Swank has made yet another physical transformation in "You're Not You," a film about a woman living with ALS.
    The film stars Swank as a tightly wound, obsessively organized and stylish concert pianist living in Houston, Texas, whose life and marriage begin to unravel with the diagnosis of ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a debilitating nervous system disease that affects muscle movement.
    Known by many as Lou Gehrig's disease, named for the world famous baseball star who first brought widespread awareness to the issue with his famous 1939 "The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth" speech, ALS has an extremely high mortality rate, with most sufferers of the disease given a 2-5 year life expectancy.
    Swank was eager to jump into another physically demanding role because she thought it was important to portray living with ALS as accurately as possible.
    "I definitely like the challenge of a physical change. Even in 'Boys Don't Cry,' I dropped down to 7 percent for that movie, and then I put on 20 pounds of muscle for million dollar baby, and then for this one, in order to portray this character as honestly as possible, but also learning the physicality of what happens to your body under that paralysis, really understanding how you hold your neck when you can't swallow any longer and you're about to choke on your own saliva, something that you take so for granted," says Swank. "We sit here, we swallow millions of times every single day, we breathe easily without even thinking about it. To really understand all that physicality, and to embody it as honestly impossible, because this is a fictional story yet we're telling a true story of someone's life right now who's living with ALS, so I felt a huge responsibility to understand what that meant, to understand that physically."
    In "You're Not You," as Swank's character Kate descends into depression after losing her independence and mobility, she relies on the help of an unlikely hire, Bec (Emmy Rossum), a loose-cannon college student who applies for a job as Kate's caretaker. The two women form an unlikely friendship as they face the ups and downs of a rare disease that few people were aware of until the social media phenomenon known as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge became a viral sensation over the summer.
    The Ice Bucket Challenge, in which participants get doused with cold water to raise money for research into a cure, helped raise over $100 million dollars (USD), but more importantly, it raised awareness for the disease. Swank, who partook in her own Ice Bucket Challenge after being nominated by co-star Rossum, is glad that her film is being released at a time when people might be interested in seeing the daily life of someone living with ALS.
    "Well, Obviously it's great timing for the film, but more importantly, it's such a wonderful blessing for ALS, and the people who've been diagnosed with ALS, to try and help find a cure for this, because I think it's a disease that not many people knew about, myself included," says Swank. "We don't even have the beginning idea of how to cure it, and we were able to make a movie that embodies what it is, so that people can actually go 'this is what the whole ALS ice bucket challenge is about, so the timing for trying to find a cure is wonderful, and obviously for the movie so we can help talk about it more."
    "I take responsibility for nominating Hilary for the Ice Bucket Challenge," says Rossum, proudly. "I did it first, and then she did it, and I think it is amazing that we raised a lot of money, but I think that hopefully this film will give you a good cry, and really show the human side of this. And it's really this nonromantic love story between these two women who are such unlikely friends, who kind of come together and inspire each other to live the lives they've really wanted to lead."
    "You're Not You" is currently in a limited release in theaters and through video on demand.
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