“What I took most from this film was how you appear to other people,” Johnson told CNN in a recent interview. “I think about how I can be more compassionate and more available, even to myself, more compassionate. What I learned a lot from this film and even talking about it now is how brave you have to be to be truly compassionate with yourself or with other people, because it is scary and you can fail. In Nicole’s case, you do everything you can and so it will not save her life, but it saved everyone’s life. “
Although Johnson took on the difficult task of playing a real person, she says that she did not want to try to “accurately imitate him”.
“I could never have done that,” she said. “I was more concerned with acting being authentic than being exactly like Nicole … The part of playing someone who is dying, part of Nicole’s journey is that she becomes very aware of everything that is happening around her and really focuses on absorbing life, her husband and her children … Most of my acting was just a reaction to the artists around me, which I love so much. We were in a small town, we spent so much time together that you know that it was easy to feel things, because we all really cared. “
“It’s a heavy subject, but there is a lot of levity and that is life. Life is painful and ridiculous and funny and horrible and beautiful. I think you can expect to feel heartbroken, but there are also some really funny moments in it.”
“Our Friend” opens in select, on-demand cinemas on Friday.