English literary scholar Vivian Bearing is a disciplined academician, a renowned expert in the brilliantly intricate metaphysical poetry of John Donne. She is prickly, precise and intensely rational in her teaching and in her life. Her passion is reserved for the classroom, yet her penetrating intelligence and biting wit alienate her students. Her academic cocoon protects her, cushions her, makes it possible for her to exist without the need of anyone. When she is suddenly faced with the most daunting of personal crises — a diagnosis of terminal ovarian cancer — her 17th-century poetic world collides with 21st-century experimental medicine, and a personal awakening is set in motion.

Based on Margaret Edson's critically acclaimed, 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, WIT chronicles one woman's journey as she faces her own mortality with dignity and humor. The HBO Films adaptation stars Emma Thompson (Academy Award® winner for "Sense and Sensibility" and "Howard's End") and is directed by Mike Nichols (Academy Award® winner for "The Graduate"). Other cast members include three-time Emmy Award® winner Christopher Lloyd ("Taxi," "Back To The Future" films), actress-writer Eileen Atkins ("The Avengers," "The Dresser"), three-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald ("Ragtime"), Jonathan M. Woodward ("Pipe Dream") and renowned British playwright Harold Pinter ("The Dumb Waiter," "Betrayal").

Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols adapted the screenplay for the film, which is executive produced, along with Nichols, by Cary Brokaw, president and CEO of Avenue Entertainment Group ("The Player," "Restoration"). WIT, produced for HBO by Avenue Pictures, debuts SATURDAY, MARCH 24 at 9:00 p.m. (ET).

Other playdates: March 27 (9:00 p.m.) and April 1 (2:00 p.m., 11:15 p.m.), 4 (8:30 a.m., 5:30 p.m.), 9 (11:45 a.m., 8:00 p.m.), 14 (4:15 p.m.) and 17 (12:30 a.m.).

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
When HBO acquired the rights to Margaret Edson's award-winning play "Wit," Colin Callender, president, HBO Films, knew from the start that he wanted Emma Thompson to play the demanding lead role. Over the proverbial cup of English tea, Callender convinced her that although the play's character was 50, she could play it younger for the film. Thompson phoned Mike Nichols, who had directed her in "Primary Colors," and he quickly agreed to helm the film.

"Mike is one of the wittiest people I know," explains Thompson. "I knew that the material needed someone who really understood that wherever there's humor, you bring it out. There's a lot of humor in this piece. Margaret Edson absolutely meant it to be funny, as well as hard to watch."

Says director Nichols, "Doing this film at HBO allowed us the freedom to be true to the piece — following its reality, keeping it intimate, yet embracing the subtle humor — a distinguishing characteristic of the story."

Producer Cary Brokaw came on board to oversee the film for Avenue Pictures and the decision was made to film in London.

"One of most exhilarating aspects of this film was the process of its transformation from play to screen," explains Brokaw. "We were fortunate to have two separate rehearsal periods where the life of the film evolved."

For 12 days in May, Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols immersed themselves in a workshop atmosphere — adapting the screenplay from Margaret Edson's play, finding the pacing, the comedic nuances and the relationships between characters. Seven weeks later and two weeks prior to the start of production, Nichols assembled his cast and began a rigorous rehearsal schedule, familiarizing his actors with each other, with their characters, and with the medical milieu in which they would work.

"We were telling an American story, shooting in London, and dealing with highly visible medical equipment and procedures," says Brokaw. "It was very important to us to really get it right; we didn't want to cut any corners. We did tremendous research and worked with medical advisors so that every aspect of this movie is completely realistic, down to the smallest gesture or piece of equipment."

Most of the film takes places in a hospital, but shooting in a real one would have been too limiting. Production designer Stuart Wurtzel was called upon to create a 10-story functioning American hospital at Pinewood Studios. Four different areas were created: ER, ICU, 7th-floor oncology, and exam/x-ray rooms.

A medical consultant from Texas was flown to London to assist the actors and filmmakers in making everything as authentic as possible. Linda Schickendanz, a clinical nurse specializing in advanced oncology and pain management, advised the art department on what machines and instruments should be used, resulting in shipments of American medical equipment to England. She also worked closely with Audra McDonald and Jonathan M. Woodward, instructing them in medical procedures to be performed on Thompson's character. Anxious to portray a cancer patient as realistically as possible, Thompson was guided by Schickendanz on her character's physical descent, describing the various stages, how she would breathe, how much vocal strength she would have, and so forth.

Jonathan M. Woodward, who plays the ambitious clinical fellow Jason Posner, faced one of the greatest challenges. It wasn't enough that he was making his television and film debut — Woodward also found himself surrounded by award-winning filmmakers and actors like Mike Nichols, Emma Thompson, Audra McDonald and Christopher Lloyd, and had to master medical procedures to make them look convincing on camera to boot.

As Woodward relates, "It is my first film. I'm flying first class to London. It's my first day of rehearsal, my first scene in the film...and I have to give Emma a pelvic examination! But Emma is so infinitely gracious and wonderful that all of the nervous tension was lost. She's my hero!"

Despite the subject matter of the film, the atmosphere around the set was uplifting and positive. Says Audra McDonald, "It was a very happy set because of that warmth and family sort of feeling. It was a supportive environment. Even though there's pain and blisters and baldness and frailty and cancer, Mike and Emma were very aware of finding the moments that are funny, because life is still funny in the face of death. Yes, there are touching moments, but there are moments that are just sort of ridiculous, because that's just the way life is."

When "Wit" opened at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven in the fall 1997, critics called it "an original and urgent work of art...among the finest plays of the decade" (Wall Street Journal ), and lauded it as "a one of a kind experience: wise, thoughtful, witty and wrenching" (Vincent Canby in The New York Times).

"Wit" not only affected theatergoers, but sent shockwaves through the medical community when it opened. Caregivers were forced to take a candid look at their ability to administer palliative care (alleviation of symptoms) when cure is not possible. Seen by many as a training manual for physicians and nurses in advanced cancer patient care, "Wit" won accolades from the medical profession, and playwright Margaret Edson received special recognition from the Oncology Nursing Society.

"I never imagined it as a movie myself, so I was very curious about what they would come up with," explains Edson. "I wasn't involved with the film at all...my choice. I gave the project whole-heartedly to Colin Callender at HBO and I wanted to see what would come of it. What is so exciting to me about this film is how quiet it is. The performances are so circumspect and every artistic decision feels respectful, sincere and honorable. I only wish they would have put a chase scene in there!"

SYNOPSIS
Vivian Bearing, Ph.D. (Emma Thompson), introduces herself as "a professor of 17th-century English poetry, specializing in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne." Controlling and supremely confident in her own field, Bearing has been cast in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable role as a real-life cancer patient, and is coping with her fears with all the biting humor and wit she can muster. The diagnosis is stage-four metastatic ovarian cancer, an aggressive and advanced form. As she listens to Dr. Kelekian's (Christopher Lloyd) prescription — eight high-dose, experimental chemotherapy treatments taken over the course of eight months — Bearing resolves to become a scholar on cancer, just as she has on Donne, who also examined the tricky issue of life and death through his Holy Sonnets.

Though the treatments promise to be excruciatingly painful — no one has ever taken all eight doses at full strength — Bearing insists she's "tough enough" to handle the challenge. After all, didn't she study with the famously demanding scholar E.M. Ashford (Eileen Atkins)? In a flashback to Bearing's student days, we see her scolded by Ashford for misinterpreting Donne's lines. She also encourages the pupil to ease up on her studies and spend time with friends. The very serious Bearing heads straight to the library instead.

Back in the present, Bearing finds the initial attention at the hospital "flattering...for the first five minutes." As she endures a battery of questions and tests from technicians, Bearing discusses her background as a scholar, teacher and author, outlining the salient characteristics of Donne's poetry, especially his use of wit.

Bearing's day-to-day hospital care is provided by Susie Monahan (Audra McDonald), a sweet-tempered private nurse, and by Dr. Jason Posner (Jonathan M Woodward), a highly driven clinical fellow who works under Dr. Kelekian. Coincidentally, Posner took Bearing's poetry course as an undergraduate, primarily to see if he could get As in the three hardest courses in school. (She gave him an A-minus.)

At first, Bearing is humorously officious, even dismissive towards her former student, who is uncomfortable with all things clinical — including dealing with patients. As their relationship evolves, however, Bearing recognizes that she and Posner are remarkably similar in their fascination with abstract issues, whether in literature or medicine.

Predictably, the chemotherapy makes Bearing violently sick. Struggling to maintain a sense of detached analysis, she masters most of the medical terminology relating to her condition, and recovers her wits (and wit) sufficiently to observe that Dr. Kelekian's "Grand Rounds," with Posner and several other young doctors, are "just like a graduate seminar. With one important difference: In Grand Rounds, they read me like a book. Once I did the teaching, now I am taught."

Explaining, "It has always been my custom to treat words with respect," Bearing remembers the exact time when she knew that words would be her life's work: Reading Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies" in the company of her father (Harold Pinter) on her fifth birthday, the little girl was delighted to learn that "soporific" meant "makes you sleepy," and that the book's illustration bore out the word's meaning, like magic.

As Bearing heads into her fifth chemotherapy cycle, however, her defenses, both physical and emotional, are nearly depleted, but Posner still thinks she's tough enough to continue, despite nurse Monahan's urgings that the dose be lowered. Placed in an isolated room to ward off germs, Bearing revels in the paradox that "I am not in isolation because I have cancer, because I have a tumor the size of a grapefruit. No. I am in isolation because I am being treated for cancer. My treatment imperils my health."

Having survived eight treatments of Hexamethophosphacil and Vinplatin at full dose — and having become something of a medical "celebrity" in the process — Bearing notes that her peritoneal cavity is "still crawling with cancer." Clearly, Dr. Kelekian's experimental treatments are just that: experimental.

During one graveyard shift at the hospital, Bearing summons Monahan and admits she is scared. Like children, the two share a Popsicle, and the nurse broaches a difficult subject: whether Bearing wants her "code status" to be Blue (in which case every effort would be made to revive her if her heart stopped) or DNR ("Do Not Resuscitate"). Bearing decides she doesn't want to "complicate" the matter, and chooses DNR. As her pain becomes more and more unbearable, Dr. Kelekian prescribes a morphine drip, which Bearing tells Susie will have a "soporific" effect. "I don't know about that," replies the nurse, "but it sure makes you sleepy." The two share a laugh at her unintended joke.

Later, Bearing receives a visitor: her esteemed former professor E.M. Ashford, now 80 years old. Declining her onetime mentor's offer to recite some John Donne, Bearing opts instead to fall asleep listening to "The Runaway Bunny," the classic children's book Ashford bought for her great-grandson. After Ashford leaves, Posner checks on Bearing, discovers her heart has stopped, and frantically makes a Code Blue call, forgetting that she is DNR.

Chaos ensues as technicians descend on the room, ignoring Monahan's protests to leave Bearing alone. At his wits' end, the stunned doctor struggles with the realization that he has actually made a mistake. Finally, Vivian Bearing, her dignity restored by nurse Monahan, lies in repose.

BIOS

WIT star Emma Thompson (Vivian Bearing) has won numerous awards for her acting and writing. Her screenplay adaptation for 1995's "Sense and Sensibility" earned her an Academy Award,® a Golden Globe Award and a WGA Screen Award, as well as awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Boston Society of Film Critics. For her performance in "Sense and Sensibility," she received the BAFTA and National Board of Review awards for Best Actress, along with a Best Actress Academy Award® nomination, a Golden Globe nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination. She received a Best Actress Academy Award® and a Golden Globe Award for 1992's "Howard's End," as well as best actress awards from the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and BAFTA. She also received best actress honors from BAFTA for "Sense and Sensibility" and "Howard's End." Thompson received an Emmy Award® for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her appearance on "Ellen."

She previously worked with Mike Nichols on the 1998 film "Primary Colors," also starring John Travolta, as well as "Remains of the Day," which Nichols produced. Thompson's other film acting credits include "Judas Kiss," "The Winter Guest," "Carrington," "Junior," "Much Ado About Nothing," "In the Name of the Father," "Peter's Friends" and "Dead Again."

Christopher Lloyd (Dr. Harvey Kelekian), who made his feature film debut in the Academy Award®-winning "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," went on to appear in or provide voices for more than 55 films, including his starring role in the "Back to the Future" trilogy. His other films include "Man on the Moon," "Convergence," "Baby Geniuses," "My Favorite Martian," "Anastasia," "The Real Blonde," "Rent-a-Kid," "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead," "The Pagemaster," "Radioland Murders," "Angels in the Outfield," "Addams Family Values," "Dennis the Menace," "The Dream Team," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Eight Men Out" and "Goin' South." Three-time Emmy® winner Lloyd received Best Supporting Actor awards for two seasons of "Taxi" and for a guest appearance on "Avonlea." His other TV work includes "Cheers," "Barney Miller, "Old Friends," "Best of the West," "Deadly Games" and numerous miniseries and movies. Among his theatrical credits are "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Seagull," "Macbeth," "In the Boom Boom Room," "What Every Woman Knows" and the off-Broadway play, "Kaspar," for which he won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

Eileen Atkins (E.M. Ashford) has appeared in such films as "Women Talking Dirty," "The Avengers," "Jack and Sarah," "Wolf," "Let Him Have It," "The Vision," "The Dresser," for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Best Supporting Actress Award, and "Equus." Her TV credits include "David Copperfield," "Madame Bovary," "Talking Heads 2," "Cold Comfort Farm," "Roman Holiday," "Oliver Twist" and "Smiley's People." Atkins created the TV series "The House of Elliott" and won the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Screenplay for the 1997 film "Mrs. Dalloway."

Audra McDonald (Susie Monahan) has received multiple awards for her performances on Broadway, including three Tony Awards for featured roles in "Ragtime," "Master Class" and "Carousel," as well as Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World awards for "Carousel." Her other theatrical credits include her most recent performance, in "The Vagina Monologues," plus "Marie Christine," "The Secret Garden" and "Broadway's Leading Ladies." On TV, she starred in "Annie," has appeared on "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Having Our Say," and was featured in the PBS specials "Evening at the Pops," "Leonard Bernstein's New York" and "Some Enchanted Evening — A Salute to Oscar Hammerstein." In addition, McDonald is a concert and recording artist.

Jonathan M. Woodward (Dr. Jason Posner) has appeared in such theatrical productions as "Year of the Baby," "The Gas Heart," "Joy in Sorrow," "Snapshots," "The Lonely Cornet," "Faith, Hope and Charity" and "Space Emergency."

Harold Pinter (Mr. Bearing), one of England's most renowned post-World War II dramatists, has written such plays as "The Dumb Waiter," "The Birthday Party," "The Caretaker," "A Slight Ache," "The Collection," "The Dwarfs," "The Lover," "The Homecoming," "Betrayal," "Moonlight," "Monologue," "No Man's Land" and "The Pumpkin Eater." His screenplay credits include "The Pickwick Papers," "The Handmaid's Tale," "The Comfort of Strangers," "Reunion," "Turtle Diary," "The Last Tycoon," "The Accident," "The Go-Between" and "The Servant." His screenplay adaptation of 1981's "The French Lieutenant's Woman" was nominated for an Academy Award® as well as a Golden Globe award, while 1983's "Betrayal" was nominated for an Academy Award® in the Adapted Screenplay category and BAFTA Award. Pinter won the BAFTA for Best Screenplay for "The Go-Between" and "The Pumpkin Eater," and received BAFTA nominations for "The Accident," "The Quiller Memorandum" and "The Servant," which also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award. As a director, Pinter's credits include "The Hothouse" and "Butley." He has acted in such films as "The Pickwick Papers," "Tailor of Panama," "Mansfield Park," "Turtle Diary," "Mojo," "Accident" and "The Servant," as well as on TV in "Breaking the Code," "The Birthday Party" and "Rogue Male."

Mike Nichols won his first of seven Tony Awards for "Barefoot in the Park." He then directed an unprecedented string of hits that included: "The Knack," "Luv" (Best Director Tony), "The Odd Couple" (Best Director Tony), "The Apple Tree," "Plaza Suite" (Best Director Tony), "Prisoner of Second Avenue" (Best Director Tony), "The Gin Game" (1978 Pulitzer Prize) and "Streamers" (New York Drama Critics Award). He directed successful revivals of "The Little Foxes" and "Uncle Vanya," the U.S. productions of "Comedians," as well as "The Real Thing" (Best Director Tony), "Hurlyburly," "Social Security," "Waiting for Godot" and "Death and the Maiden." As a theatrical producer, he presented "Whoopi Goldberg on Broadway" and won the Tony for his blockbuster show "Annie."

Nichols directed his first film, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," in 1966, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Director and for which Elizabeth Taylor won a Best Actress Academy Award.® In 1967, he directed "The Graduate," for which he won the Academy Award® for Best Director, the Directors Guild Award and the New York Film Critics Award. His subsequent films include "Catch-22," "Carnal Knowledge," "Silkwood" (Best Director Academy Award® nomination), "Working Girl" (Best Director Academy Award® nomination), "Postcards from the Edge," "Regarding Henry" and "Wolf." Most recently, he was reunited with former collaborator Elaine May on "The Birdcage" and "Primary Colors," which May wrote and Nichols produced and directed.

WIT executive producer Cary Brokaw is president and CEO of Avenue Entertainment Group, whose Avenue Pictures produced the 1994 film "Restoration," winner of Oscars® for art direction and costume design, as well as Robert Altman's "Short Cuts," which won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature. In addition to "The Player," which received five Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture, Brokaw and Avenue have produced such features as "Finding Graceland," "The Object of Beauty," "Drugstore Cowboy," "After Dark, My Sweet," "American Heart," "Pascali's Island" and the upcoming "Wayward Son," starring Harry Connick, Jr. and Pete Postlethwaite. He has executive produced such television movies as "The Time Shifters," "The Almost Perfect Bank Robbery," HBO's "Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing," "Tell Me No Secrets," "Two Mothers for Zachary," "See Jane Run," "A Stranger in Town," "Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight" and "In the Eyes of a Stranger."

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Contact Info:
HBO New York: Quentin Schaffer
(212) 512-1329

Nancy Lesser (Los Angeles)
(310) 201-9274 5025