Liam Neeson lost his wife, Natasha Richardson, in a tragic 2009 ski accident. Now, in ‘Ordinary Love,’ opening Valentine’s Day, the actor plays a man grappling with his wife’s breast cancer. The role is close to his heart: "I've had four relatives who have died of cancer, three of them of breast cancer over the last few years," Neeson told Deadline in an interview.
Read MoreThe Real-Life Cancer Story Behind ‘Ordinary Love’
“Anybody can get cancer;” says Owen McCafferty, the movie’s screenwriter said in a Toronto Film Festival interview, who based the storyline on his own experience. His wife, Peggy, was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. For years, he said, he felt “too raw” about the topic to write about it. Now, with his wife’s blessings, he hopes RELATED: Her Other Half: How Christina Applegate Shares "the Cancer Gene" and a Double Mastectomy With Her Netflix Character in "Dead To Me"the experiences captured in ‘Ordinary Love’ convey “the normality of that process in two people's lives.” As he puts it, “the story is about both love and grief.”
What attracted Leslie Manville — who plays Neeson’s wife, Joan, to the role? “Liam!” she told the Toronto audience. Toronto Film Festival. “He’s very attractive, isn’t he?”
“People don’t often write love stories for us,” says Manville, 63, in the Toronto Film Festival interview. “We’re not supposed to have sex over forty. They’re a couple who still like each other…who can still make each other laugh.”
Getting The Cancer Right
The cancer storyline rings true, says Manville, because, “The nurse…doing a needle biopsy…she was a real cancer biopsy nurse; the nurse administering the chemo was a real chemo nurse. It made me feel like I was in a real hospital going through this.”
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Cancer, says Manville, “is so prevalent in the world now — [we all] know someone who’s been affected. And it’s quite important to demystify all that.”
Did the actors bring their own experience with loss to the roles? “You don't to that stage of life without having encountered…grief or loss or illness,” director Lisa Barros told Red Carpet News TV, “and I think that Liam and Leslie…, of course, there's going to be personal emotion that comes into creating those characters.”
It. made me feel like I was in a real hospital going through this
in And to go to quite a very simply show something that is so devastating for a family that is so prevalent in the world now cancer not many of us don't know someone who's been affected. And it's quite important, I think, to demystify all of that. And the backdrop of all of this is this rather charming sweet love story. They're a couple that still like each other; still make each other laugh. They have these small things that make up the fabric of their lives. It's a therefore a fascingating film to have made quite hard some days for liam and I.
When asked what attracted her to the role, Manville didn’t hesitate: “Liam!” When her Toronto Film Festival audience laughs she adds,”but he’s very attractive, isn’t he?
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