cameron diaz movies
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 Chapter 2 - Save her, save her, save her, save her
“Just so you know, I’m not going to let her die. I’m not.” – Sara
In the pivotal role of the family matriarch, Cameron Diaz was the first actor cast. The part of the single-minded mother of a sick child intrigued her because her first reaction to Sara Fitzgerald was profound.
“I wanted to understand her, who she was, how she became that way and why she makes the decisions she does,” she says. “That exploration was very compelling to me and I thought it would be challenging to try to tell her story.”
“For me, this movie is serious on so many levels,” notes Cassavetes, “and there are a finite number of actresses that you think of for this type of role. Each of them has an impressive body of work. But I really didn’t want to cast an actress who had done something similar for this film.”
Perhaps better-known for her comedic roles, it was Diaz’s dramatic performances that appealed to Johnson. “I’ve been a fan of Cameron for a long time and, frankly, her dramatic roles are among my favorites. I think what she did in ‘In Her Shoes’ was remarkable; she was astonishing in ‘Being John Malkovich,’ in ‘Vanilla Sky’…the list goes on. Cameron was our first choice for Sara, and I remember when we first found out she was interested, Nick and I looked at each other and said, ‘Can you believe how lucky we are?’” Johnson remarks.
“Cameron’s great in whatever she does,” offers Cassavetes, “and I’m so proud of her work in this film. She had to dare to be unsympathetic, because the character of Sara has tunnel vision; everyone around her seems to have some perspective, and she’s just ‘Save her, save her, save her, save her.’”
In the process of inhabiting Sara Fitzgerald and portraying her staunch devotion to her sick child, Diaz learned not to evaluate her. The character is not easily delineated as “good” or “bad,” but rather navigates a murky moral area; Diaz instead tried to empathize with her and to understand the terrible situation that led to her actions.
In preparing for the role, Diaz says, “I talked to parents who had sick kids and to their children, to try to understand what it would be like to be in this position. The truth is you can’t know what you’d do unless you’re in her situation; until you have a deathly ill child, there is no way to say to what lengths you would go to save that child. And I thought that was very interesting to examine, because we love to judge people, don’t we? But, with Sara, I found that impossible to do,” Diaz remarks.
Kate, Sara’s daughter who is afflicted with leukemia, is played by Sofia Vassilieva. While her character lives with the specter of death throughout the film, the teenaged actress says it was the universal bonds of family presented in the script that attracted her to the part.
“The beautiful, intricate relationship this family develops and the connections they form appealed to me,” says Vassilieva. “Although not all families go through something as drastic as the Fitzgeralds do, the story of how one person can affect the entire family unit struck me as very real, touching and beautiful.”
She was particularly drawn to Kate’s spirit and her love of life. “Because Kate is so close to death, she appreciates everything—every smell, every bird, every breath is precious to her—all the things we take for granted. There is a sort of purity to her that grabbed me; she is one of the most incredible characters I have come across so far,” Vassilieva says.
Kate’s counterpart and lifeline, Anna, is the catalyst for the sudden change in course the family goes through.
“I really believed that the lynchpin of the film had to be Anna, that the honesty of her emotions were what was going to anchor the film,” says author Jodi Picoult. Already an Oscar-nominated actress, Abigail Breslin, who turned 12 during production, committed entirely to Anna, whose lawsuit against her parents is waged out of an abiding love for her sister and family.
“I remember reading the script for the first time and saying to my mom, ‘I have to be this girl.’ I just loved it. I loved all the characters, I loved the family—it was something I had to do,” Breslin says.
Breslin initially worried that the mood on set might be sad and intense, but says this was not the case.
“When I found out I got the role, I thought, there are parts of this that are so sad, everyone is going to be very serious about it all. But everyone was very nice and it was so much fun. Some of the scenes were sad but the set was not,” Breslin recalls.
She attributes this atmosphere to her director, who kept the mood light, the pace quick, and offered a supportive but firm approach. “Nick was always really fun and I felt like he was always there for me. You can talk to him about anything. And he’ll always listen to what you have to say about the movie or your role, or really anything that you want to talk about. He will always let you try out your ideas. He’s just really cool,” Breslin says.
Eschewing elaborate rehearsals, Cassavetes opted for a more spontaneous approach, and created a safe emotional environment for his actors. In particular, he never talked down to his younger cast members, always treating them with respect as fellow artists.
“You find yourself talking with ‘babies’ about the most personal and deep things, major questions in life, and that they are able to understand better than you,” the director marvels. “As a person that’s older than they are, you feel you must be the teacher; but in many ways they are the teachers. Whether it’s a testament to their talent, or to their great insight as human beings to be able to feel and understand these kinds of things, I don’t know. But I really got lucky.”
Picoult was particularly excited about the seasoned Breslin taking on the role of Anna. “Anna is the one who's the heart, and I honestly cannot think of another actress Abby’s age that I would've trusted as much with that role.”
The author remembers a set visit she made during the filming of a particularly emotional moment for the character. “I watched her film a scene where Anna is crying at Kate's bedside when Kate's very, very sick. And I watched them do this scene…I don't know…eight or 10 times in a row. And after Nick would yell ‘Cut,’ Abby would start laughing about something. And then she would do the scene again beautifully. And I just thought, ‘This little girl is incredible.’”
While Anna’s mother is fixated on saving her sister, Anna’s unprecedented refusal to help forces her father to start looking at things from a different perspective. Jason Patric takes on the role of Brian, Sara’s loving but increasingly frustrated husband.
“Pairing Jason with Cameron felt like one of those exciting situations where one and one make more than two, one of those combinations where you say, ‘I wonder what that will bring forth,’” states Johnson.
“Brian is really the one who is torn,” observes Patric. “He and his wife have sort of a Solomon-type problem, choosing between the needs of the two girls, but he is more conflicted. His wife is dead-set on her course, but he thinks more about balancing the needs of both children.”
Johnson notes, “I have made several movies with Jason and he is a strong dramatic actor who really immerses himself in his roles. Nick had been a big fan of his, too. Jason really wanted to know who Brian was, so we spent several days in an intensive dialectic trying to mine his place as a father, a husband and a man enmeshed in this big drama.”
Completing the family are Heather Wahlquist as Sara’s sister and confidante, Aunt Kelly, and Evan Ellingson as Jesse, Sara and Brian’s teenage son who finds himself somewhat lost in the family shuffle. The young actor, Diaz points out, really blossomed as Jesse, and the part became more and more pivotal over the course of shooting.
“It was amazing to watch. He and Nick kept adding more to the role because Jesse was clearly so big a part of the Fitzgerald puzzle. Evan is a lovely soul and it was wonderful to watch this happen,” she says.
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