“The Notebook” star Gena Rowlands, 94, has Alzheimer’s disease.
Her son Nick Cassavetes, who directed the beloved 2004 rom-com, revealed his mom’s diagnosis to Entertainment Weekly on Tuesday.
Ironically, Gena’s character in the film had dementia. She played the older version of Rachel McAdams’ Allie Hamilton.
“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,” said Cassavetes, 65.
“She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us,” he added.
Rowlands’ mother and Cassavetes’ grandmother, actress Lady Rowlands, also had Alzheimer’s.
Rowlands starred in “The Notebook” with McAdams, Ryan Gosling, James Garner, James Marsden and Kevin Connolly. The movie is based on Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 novel.
The year the film came out, Rowlands opened up to “O” magazine about about playing a character with Alzheimer’s after her mother faced the same disease.
“This last one — ‘The Notebook’ — 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.”
“t’s just too hard,” Rowlands added. “It was a tough but wonderful movie.”
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