My daughter was a baby and she's now in high school. On the length of time it took to get "Mr. I knew everything that he wanted me to know about who he was and, in his death, just like in life, I wanted to honor his privacy. I don't know every aspect, but I know what I was supposed to know and the important things of this man. Audiences need everything tied up in a neat bow and that's not how life is. Because I think that sometimes we fall into that trap. I didn't want to put in a fake, I'm going to reveal some really weird secret about him just for the sake of Hollywood and storytelling. I always felt like, here's a man who gave me everything, if the only thing he's asking for is his privacy, I have to honor that.
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In my life with him, the one thing he always did want was privacy. I love that we all have different relationships. Church was one of a father figure, a best friend, a teacher, where, in somebody else's life, he was a piano player. And you see it at the end when Jelly approaches and doesn't even know he cooks, that idea that we all know different parts of each other and everybody has their own story with somebody. I think that's what I love about this story. I really wanted to focus on the friendship, so I chose to give you a romantic exit and kill you. I didn't want to write the movie about my relationship with my mom and go down that road. He became - and that's like a death in itself - extremely important to me. After she survived her cancer, for many years, I lost my relationship along with my mom, to alcoholism.
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My mom was dying of cancer and he was in our life and she is a miracle. I'm sorry to tell you, my mom is still alive. The other thing, my mom survived her cancer. Then I took creative liberties - two of the main ones being my daughter, he never met my daughter, so I created that story, I am a single mom. I always say that it's inspired by true friendship because everything about the friendship in the movie, about our bond, about what he gave me, what he taught me, our love for each other, who he is, is all real. I had a baby and he passed away before my baby was born and it was very sad that they would never know each other, that they would never meet, that she would never know this person who raised me and that he would never know her. I never knew how I wanted to tell the story. I always knew that I wanted to write a story about our friendship because it was so unique and he was so important in every aspect of my life - childhood, becoming a writer, everything - and I always knew that one day I wanted to write about us.
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My mom was very sick with cancer and he stayed in my life until the day he died. He came into my life when I was a little girl, just like in the movie. He went by a different name, but it's based on our friendship.