My Sister's Keeper

"The Notebook" knew instinctively that Diaz would be perfect to play the mother of a child dying of cancer in his latest tear-jerker "My Sister's Keeper," which opened Friday. "I have understood the totality of Cameron for many years," Cassavetes explained.

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"Zombieland" with Bill Murray, which is set for an October release. That's a very different film from "My Sister's Keeper," which, of course, required crying, but Breslin says director Nick Cassavetes took care of that. "If it was a crying scene, he would make the actors off-camera cry just to support the actors in the scene," says Breslin, who got to utter her first curse word in the movie, which embarrassed her a bit.

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"I think what was hardest with my grandpa was that we all knew what was going to happen.

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"Nick's experience with his father's death was something that he shared a lot with me about, even before my dad died." John Cassavetes -- the irascible director who pioneered documentary-style realism in such films as "Women Under the Influence" -- died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1989. "It was horrible," says his son, whose stoicism certainly informs "My Sister's Keeper," a film that doesn't ennoble suffering.

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"Yes, she's never played a mother and she's playing a mother of three in this movie but that didn't scare me. I knew she was up for it. I'm more proud of her performance in the film than I am proud of things in my life," he said.

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Cameron Diaz says that her co-stars on the set of My Sister's Keeper helped her deal with the death of her father: "I was really, really fortunate to have these people to come back to," she says, "Being able to go back to the group of people who were there waiting for me was a blessing, ... so that's really sort of the only way I was able to do it."

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"My Sister's Keeper," directed by Cassavetes. "They should give tissues with it as a promo," Diaz says. Cassavetes talks about going to the movies "for an experience of connection."

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Following My Sister's Keeper, she says, "I envision a full year off, just living life and having fun. It's the best thing."

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