00:07Okay, so these two are exes, wife and husband, and they have this one between them, their
00:18beautiful baby daughter, Rose. Rose gets cancer at the age of two, and they become embittered
00:28with pain, and they can't cope, and they find other partners and divorce. At the age of 14,
00:40Rose has a recurrence of her cancer. They do not have any other children between them
00:47to create a DNA match for Rose's illness. So the oncologists say, well, you need to produce
00:57a savior sibling, to save Rose. There's the dilemma. And that's really the movie. How
01:04do they do that? It's set in New York. And there are many reasons why I decided to bring
01:12it to London, not least being because America's healthcare system is really fractured. And
01:19many things can be said about our National Health Service in the UK. But anybody who has
01:27cancer, if a child has cancer, you go to the Royal Marsden or the Great Hormone Street Hospital,
01:35and you will be seen even if you've just got off an aeroplane with that sick child. So I'm
01:46met many oncologists on this journey that I've been on with up against it. So I brought it over
01:56to the UK. Cammie Griffin took on the reins from Chloe King, the original writer, and we went through
02:05like nine drafts before we came to one that actually landed. And then it was time to think about the
02:11casting. And Antonio Banderas has been in my life since the 90s. And we were great friends when he was
02:22living in Los Angeles. And then time went by and we didn't see each other for a long time. But
02:28when
02:28we rewrote the part of the male lead, I thought that really, Antonio would knock this part
02:41out of the park. What a great decision. Which he does. Very modestly, not. And so that was the
02:53beginning of this journey. And we shot the film last year, last August, from the first of August
03:00till the 17th of September. And here we are today going to TIFF. I think very early I understood that
03:09there was not only our daughter having a cancer. There were many different cancers going on in the
03:20movie. There's a cancer in the relationship between Zafran and Alvaro, the character I played. And then as a
03:30consequence of something, an event that happens that I am not going to reveal. Other cancers come, you
03:36know, in the relationship with our actual, you know, couples. And so there is a lot of things to cure
03:44in the movie, in the story. We have to go through a process that is sometimes painful, sometimes funny,
03:53like life. And it comes to a conclusion. I will not reveal any of that. But I think it's a
04:00movie about life,
04:01basically. And that was the thing that actually popped up to me from the beginning, from the moment
04:08that I read the script, that a movie that is necessary in our time. Because life itself prevails
04:17over all of us. And it's the most important thing. And there is a celebration of life in close in
04:25the
04:26movie. And that is, in a way, you know, it made me more emotional about the possibility of doing the
04:32job. And I wasn't wrong. During the process was beautiful. We got to actually enjoy working with
04:41each other and understanding, you know, the problems of these people and, in a way, a bridge to the
04:48problems of society, you know, when something like this comes on top of all of them.
04:54I think for a woman to channel rage, it's not hard to access. So that was there. You know, I
05:10think we've all
05:11had, you know, relationships in our lives that have, you know, pushed us to the limit or have torn us
05:19apart or
05:20have made us, you know, hate ourselves, made us feel a whole number of, you know, big emotions and can
05:30put you through the wringer. I think it's something that there's people that's, you know, we can say we can
05:35at least have one relationship like that, if not more. So it's drawing from life experience, isn't it? And then
05:42I think the sort of exciting and interesting thing about this script was the fact that it does sort of
05:50teacher between, you know, it being a comedy, but also something that's, has a very, you know, serious
05:55subject at its core. And it's, it was a, you know, an ongoing conversation that we all had when we
06:01were
06:01shooting it as when to, you know, when to lean into the comedy, what, but also how not to lose
06:09what's,
06:10you know, what matters and what's serious about it. And I think the comedy has actually seen,
06:14what I loved about it was that it's very natural as how we are as, as human beings, you know,
06:19we
06:19either rely on humor to sort of, you know, cope and deal with certain situations or else it just
06:25comes out because we're messy, funny, stupid people. And so it never felt contrived or sort of
06:34forced. It was just, it always, and I think that's sort of, you know, the fun that we had in
06:38playing
06:39it with myself and Antonio is that was sort of, you know, this great fun to be had. It's like
06:44playing,
06:44it's like, you know, batting a ball at each other, you know, sort of these insults back and forth.
06:49And it was just really enjoyable as well.
06:52I'd say one of my favorite scenes to film was actually on the first day of filming
06:57and I was doing a jam session with Antonio. I was on guitar and I was singing and Antonio was
07:02on the keyboard and we were improvising over a piece of music that Antonio had written.
07:06And it was really nice because we could bond over music and also our love of musical theatre.
07:11Obviously there are challenging moments. Because I'm a teen girl like Rose, we were the same age.
07:18I'd say the scene where Rose has had to shave off all of her hair and she's tried to do
07:25it by herself
07:25and it's not gone too well. I think that hit me quite emotionally because I felt, you know,
07:35I'm quite emotionally attached to my hair and I could feel how that would really pain someone.
07:44So I play Dr. Harris, who's Rose's therapist, taking care of her mental health
07:51and going through this journey with her. I think my best research I did was I've been in therapy
08:01myself since I was about 13 and I have deep love and respect for those people in my life.
08:12No judgment, mom. No judgment. Thank you for paying for it.
08:20Listen, everyone should be in therapy. However, I think that it just came,
08:27and there was also in the writing that this woman has so much care for her patients and for this
08:35incredibly challenging an adult having to deal with death, you know, the potential of death and like
08:42how do children do that? And we just being in that hospital, we were in the hospital and the ward
08:49with
08:50with all these kids and yeah, it was really, it was, it was very emotional.
08:59And yeah, real privilege to be Rose's support system and, and high, and also happy,
09:08have her back when maybe her parents in moments don't.
09:13I don't know. I struggled with the medical terms, even though I, you know, I, I, I know the terms,
09:19I've had it said to me, but you know, when you're, when you're pretending and playing doctor,
09:24I suppose it gets a bit different and difficult. But I think I, I really just sort of leaned into
09:30the
09:30script and where the humor sort of came out through the situation that Dr. Choi was in is kind of
09:38like,
09:38I'm the metal effect doctor who's going to be here trying to get things right. And then this is a
09:43very
09:43unusual situation. And, and are you guys sure you guys know what you're doing? So that kind of,
09:48you know, um, scenario that we were in was, uh, quite interesting to play, to say the least.
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