I wasn't concerned about that. I’d been in films before, not a lot, but I’ve been in a couple of films. I felt comfortable with them. I guess the key is that I felt comfortable doing everything with those people. I liked them an awful lot and I respected their work a lot. It was no problem for me to cooperate with them.
How has the film’s success helped the comic book?
I don’t know what kind of an effect it's had on the comic book. The film's success so far involves winning a couple of prizes at Cannes and Sundance, and getting some very nice reviews in newspapers and magazines. That hasn’t had a big impact on my life yet.
What I want to do is I want to improve my life with this film. Specifically I’m talking about I’d like to make more money because I have a 15 year-old foster daughter and I have a wife to support. I’m already retired and I’m 63 years old. My pension is not enough to make it for us. I've got to try and pick up more freelance writing work. I'm hoping that this film helps me do that. I’ve gotten some pretty lucrative freelance writing jobs out of it so far, but it's stuff that’s connected with the film. For example, a six-page story for “Entertainment Weekly” about how the film evolved. I want to be getting work that is more like the work I did before the film. I want to be able to do that on a regular basis. I’d like to find a few good editors that I could work with on a consistent basis. People that saw things the way that I did. I found a couple of people. I’m just hoping I can find a few more and maybe rest a little bit easier about my future.
How do the people in your life, specifically your wife and your foster daughter, feel about the movie?
They are very happy with it, especially Danielle my kid. She’s real excited about it. She likes the film. She got a big kick out of meeting all the people that were involved in making the film. She’s a little star-struck. She's got a crush on half the cast of "Harry Potter" and half the cast of the "Lord of the Rings."
Is she looking down the road at what she wants to do?
I think she would normally be interested in being some kind of an artist, some kind of a visual artist. When she first used to come over to our house when she was 9, she liked to work with my wife's art supplies. She’s got some talent. She's got the patience to learn a lot of these processes. We just have to see where it goes. I think what she’s most interested in doing now is something in visual arts.
Why was the ‘Cancer Year’ chosen as a focal point for the movie?
It was one of the turning points of my life. My life was in the balance. I didn’t know whether I was going to live or die. I was very depressed by having the cancer and the treatments. It just so happened that I was moving into a new house at the same time it was discovered that I had this lymphoma. There were just some real important things that were going on, and they were happening simultaneously. Some of them resolved, some didn't. I went into remission for cancer, but I’ve had it since then. I had it in 2002. I’m supposed to be in remission again.
Was it tough for you to see that on film? That’s a really personal story.
That doesn’t bother me. There are things that I’ve done that I’m kind of ashamed of; everybody is like that. I'm not ashamed of having cancer, and I’m not ashamed of having that portrayed. Things like that never used to bother me. Reviewing some intimate details of my life didn’t bother me as long as I could live with what I had done.
