MIKE BINDER REMEMBERS SEPTEMBER 11TH

Reign Over Me writer and director Mike Binder was being interviewed by Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. He was joined by The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson who had just left her office at the World Trade Center so her appearance on the morning chat show saved her life.

This was all the inspiration Binder needed to write the story of a man played by Adam Sandler who is the walking dead after losing his family in the crash. Binder talks about how Don Cheadle’s character is the only one able to break through Sandler’s silence about his tragic loss.

“One of the reasons Alan is able to get through to Charlie when no one else is is because Alan never knew his wife and three kids. He knew him really well before he had a wife and three kids and then they split up after college and they lost track of each other. When they meet again he subconsciously, not even in a conscious way he feels safe around Alan because he knows that Alan isn’t gonna bring up a lot of old stories about the wife and the kids. He’s not gonna ask him about the wife and the kids because he doesn’t know anything about them.”

Mike says essentially the film is about the necessity to communicate no matter how difficult the circumstances.