Out Sept. 30, the charming and tearjerking 50/50 isn't an exact account of what Reiser went through -- though it does feature many hallmarks of his own life, including Seth Rogen. The 50/50 star and producer is Reiser's good friend off-screen, and fills the same position onscreen for Reiser stand-in Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). In fact, it was at Rogen's urging that Reiser completed the script for 50/50.
The two friends rang up Movieline this week to discuss the beginnings of 50/50, how their relationship has evolved over time and why Rogen can't listen to a specific Pearl Jam song without seeing flames.
[Minor 50/50 spoilers follow.]
At what point did you decide that your battle with cancer would make a good screenplay?
Will Reiser: Well, first of all, I want to say, it's definitely fiction. It's definitely inspired by what we went through.
Seth Rogen: Now we can't get sued. [Laughs]
WR: The idea for the movie really started when Seth and I were at a party one night. I had been diagnosed maybe a month prior to the party, and our way of dealing with the whole thing was through humor. We were 24, 25; Seth, what were you?
SR: Six years ago? 24, yeah.
WR: So we weren't having a lot of emotional conversations. Our way of dealing with it was pointing at the absurdity and finding humor in the situations. We had this funny idea for a buddy comedy. And that's it! We would make reference to that night every once in a while, and then once I got better, Seth and his writing partner Evan Goldberg, they really just pushed me to write it. To take my experience and turn it into a screenplay. But it really started that night when we were at the party. We were just fucking around, but that was the inception of the idea.
And once the script was done, did you have a hard time getting studios to bite? After all, saying you're making a cancer comedy doesn't seem like the easiest of pitches.
SR: Not really. It probably was not going to be the type of movie that a major studio would ever make in the first place, and we knew we didn't want that. We wanted to be able to really push it and be as honest as we could and not have to worry about taking a lot of notes and the development process, per se. We had already known Nathan Kahane and Mandate through another script we had sold them -- our apocalypse movie -- and we just really liked him. They make really kind of fancy, artsy movies, which are not the kind of movies we generally make. [Laughs] We thought maybe they could be good guys to make it; he read it and he loved it, and it just kinda happened pretty easily from there.
I've seen you guys discuss how Seth initially heard from Will about his cancer while taking a crap; that didn't make it into the film, fortunately/unfortunately. Where did you draw the line on what to take from your life and what to fabricate/embellish?
SR: We had that experience with Superbad. We had written a movie that was almost as exactly as kind-of autobiographical as this movie was for Will, in that it was inspired by stuff that happened, and some things were very specific to stuff that happened, but in a general way. It was not really quite how it went down. One of the things we learned in Superbad was that just because it happened, it did not mean it belonged in the movie. [Laughs]
WR: I definitely wrote scenes that were things that happened to me in real life, but when they were on the page they felt totally absurd. They didn't feel believable.
SR: Some of the things we took out because they were so ridiculous no one would ever even believe they would happen.
WR: In the movie there's a going-away party for Adam. It's a very condensed version of that. The original scene that was in the movie was every single one of his co-workers giving him advice. We cut it down because it felt so unbelievable, but that was very true to what I went through. I felt like people were always giving me lots and lots of advice. Rightfully so! People wanted to help, but when you're sick like that -- people have so much trouble being in this space of uncertainty and sorta not knowing what the future is, and they kinda want to fix it. So I felt like people were constantly trying to give me advice because they wanted to fix the situation. But it just sorta overwhelms you at a certain point. That's what the scene was about, but we had to trim it down.
Because of how personal this story was to you both, how important was it to find the right director to handle this material? How'd you land on Jonathan Levine?
SR: We had seen The Wackness and we really liked it, but it was really him that sold us more than his previous work. We just got along with him really well. He had experienced things similar to this. We spoke the same movie language.
WR: He was really passionate about it! He wrote a passionate letter about how much he really wanted to do it.
SR: That went a long way. I remember reading the letter, saying, like, "This guy really wants to do it! No one else is fucking writing us letters."
WR: Yeah! This movie really meant something to him. For us, I think, doing it -- to have a director where this movie was as important to them as it was to us, that was key.
SR: I remember him saying, 'I will try really hard for you guys.' (Laughs) I actually believed him. That's such a weird thing to say, but I totally bought that he would.
WR: He's an awesome dude. He's become our good friend. It was a great collaboration.
Even the brief chat we've had so far, the chemistry between you two is very evident. How important was the casting process to find Adam? Did you have Joseph Gordon-Levitt in mind from the start?
SR: No, we didn't. We didn't have anyone in mind when writing. It was kinda just like Will.
WR: It was me. We were writing me. [Laughs]
SR: There was literally a very short discussion about Will playing the role, which ultimately I'm very glad we didn't do.
WR: It would have been a horrible idea. [Laughs)]
SR: A very bad idea. [Laughs] James McAvoy was going to do it, but he had to leave because of a family emergency, and then I had known Joe. We thought he could be incredible, and he seemed really excited about it. He actually jumped into the role with very little prep time. It was incredibly impressive to watch. As an actor, I have to say. It's the type of role a lot of people would want to work on for months and do research. He literally, within a matter of days, became this character. It was kind of miraculous.
WR: He had one week to prepare.
Kyle, ultimately, has a very sweet and heartwarming arc, but for so much of the film he comes off like, well, a dick. A good-natured dick, but a dick. Were you worried about making Kyle too unlikeable?
SR: I don't really have a likeability fear -- which I'm sure a lot of people who hate me will attest to. [Laughs] No, to me, it felt like a real dynamic. The only line we had to walk was that I couldn't be such a terrible person that you wouldn't believe this guy would be friends with me.
WR: But I think that's our -- you can correct me if I'm wrong, Seth -- but that's our dynamic. Our friendship is kind of like that.
SR: You wrote it like that! You used to be way more of a pain in the ass and I used to be a way bigger asshole. Especially five years ago. It was much more like that than it is now. [Laughs]
WR: I used to be way more neurotic and Seth would make fun of me all the time. That's our friendship.
SR: I hadn't had a girlfriend yet back then. I hadn't been taught how to behave properly. [Laughs]
Seth, you've been an executive producer before and even a co-producer on The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but here you were a producer for the first time. How much different was that than your previous experiences?
SR: It wasn't that different. The only real difference was that there was no one above us. Normally, we kind of have a Judd [Apatow] safety net. Not that he's around all the time on Superbad and Pineapple Express, but if the shit really hit the fan he was always there. It was actually kind of really fun to not have that. It was terrifying at times, when you look around and think, "We are really in charge of all of this!"
WR: It felt like we were making a student film, because it was so relaxed. We were all collaborating. It was really nice.
SR: We're not those people who think work needs to be harder than it needs to be. We really tried to have a relaxed environment on set, and we're somewhat competent in our process -- as competent as we need to be -- and we hope it goes right. We really try to include everyone. We try to make it really fun. It was really great to set the tone -- because I think producers do set the tone on set. Everyone is wondering, "Is this something I'll get yelled at for? Is this the kind of thing people will go crazy about?" When everyone realizes that it's fun, I think the whole movie becomes better.
The soundtrack is particularly strong, especially because you have bands -- like Pearl Jam and Radiohead -- that normally aren't featured in films. How were you able to secure those rights?
SR: Yeahhh, it wasn't easy.
WR: It was not easy. It was not easy.
SR: It was a budgetary thing. Often in a movie of this scale -- it's an $8 million movie -- if you want songs like that you have to go around with a hat and collect money and get the songs.
Well, it paid off; "Yellow Ledbetter" is a perfect capper to the film.
SR: That is very gratifying to hear. It makes the money we paid worth it. [Laughs] Every time I hear that song, I see a pile of money in flames.