Pacino plays Kevorkian

By: Valerie Milano

HBO and director Barry Levinson bring “You Don’t Know Jack” to the screen on April 24, offering a behind the scenes look at the life of Jack Kevorkian, Dr. Death, defender of terminally ill patient’s rights. The script, written by Adam Mazer, explores the life of one of our most talked about public figures. The cast includes a host of wonderfully talented film actors including Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, Brenda Vaccaro and Danny Huston.

Pacino, who portrays Dr. Kevorkian, did some research on the man, and found him to be a very interesting study.  The film title has a double meaning and commenting on that he said, “And really you don’t know jack. When you see the image that was portrayed of Jack Kevorkian during his time, and you get you get a sense of someone quite different than the personality that I got to know. Not that I got to know him personally, mind you, but just to the research I did and the work I did, in order to get closer to who I could sort of interpret. I think the title is apt because you don’t know this guy. And, hopefully, in the movie you still don’t.

Sarandon plays Kevorkian’s sister Margo, with whom he had a great relationship. After the loss of his good friend of many years Neal Nicol, played by John Goodman, and his sister he was completely unattached, having no wife, children or family. The film looks at his feeling of responsibility and the challenge to be the voice of patient’s right to die with dignity because he didn’t have anything at stake. Besides his intense commitment to his beliefs and beyond all of the headlines from the 90’s, Dr. Kevorkian was a painter and a poet.

Going from the big screen to HBO wasn’t a huge decision for Sarandon who said, “It was a great script and Al Pacino was doing it, and Barry Levinson was doing it, and I was very honored to be asked to be part of it even in a little tiny part. And wherever you stand on an issue, just that character study to see what it takes to make a point, and which he did so brilliantly, and all the flaws that go into having somebody, as Al said, that really is a zealot is just an amazing story.” She continued, “It just is a portrait of this man at that time basically the movie, is so complex and so unexpected and that you know, whatever his dedication is, people who dedicate their lives, their complete lives to the absence of anything else in their lives, to anything, are really fascinating, dealing with something which becomes more and more relevant as this huge amount of baby boomers has to deal with their health issues and their death.”

Although the Dr. spent 10 years in jail for something he fervently believed in, he never got to take the cause before the Supreme Court, which is as far as the film goes as well. He came out of jail to find no one had taken up the cause, but physician assisted suicide is now legal in 3 states and even anti-Kevorkian groups believe Dr. Death did a lot to push the right to die movement forward and bring attention and improvement to the quality of end of life care. We may know a little more about jack, after all.