Gena Rowlands was heartbreaking in the iconic 2004 romance film The Notebook — but there’s no way she could have known it was going to be her future. Fans will remember the legendary actress played the older version of Rachel McAdams’ character, Allie Hamilton. She was spending her elder years in a retirement home while dealing with Alzheimer’s. Now, a decade later, Gena herself is sadly living with the disease IRL — just like her character in the movie.
Her son Nick Cassavetes — who directed The Notebook — revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly on Tuesday that she has had Alzheimer’s for five years and is “in full dementia” at this time. And it’s not lost on him how “crazy” the whole situation is given she famously portrayed a woman with the disease and is now struggling with it herself:
“I got my mom to play older Allie, and we spent a lot of time talking about Alzheimer’s and wanting to be authentic with it, and now, for the last five years, she’s had Alzheimer’s. She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”
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So heartbreaking! Especially knowing her own mother, Lady Rowlands, also had Alzheimer’s disease — which impacted her decision to star in The Notebook. She told O magazine back in 2004:
“This last one — The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks — was particularly hard because I play a character who has Alzheimer’s. I went through that with my mother, and if Nick hadn’t directed the film, I don’t think I would have gone for it — it’s just too hard. It was a tough but wonderful movie.”
The filmmaker did not go into details about his mother’s battle. Instead, Nick remembered a fond memory he has of working with Gena on the set of the beloved film. He recalled one moment in which the studio executives demanded he re-shoot the ending of a scene because they wanted his mom to cry more when older Allie remembers her past with Noah. However, Gena wasn’t too happy with the critique:
“She said, ‘Let me get this straight. We’re reshooting because of my performance?’ We go to reshoots, and now it’s one of those things where mama’s pissed and I had asked her, ‘Can you do it, mom?’ She goes, ‘I can do anything.’”
And she gave a stellar one-take performance. Nick continued:
“I promise you, on my father’s life, this is true: Teardrops came flying out of her eyes [on the first take] when she saw [Garner], and she burst into tears. And I was like, okay, well, we got that… It’s the one time I was in trouble on set.”
Our hearts go out to Nick and the rest of her loved ones. Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below.
[Image via Warner Bros./YouTube, FayesVision/WENN]
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