Ryan White wasn’t completely sure what would come of his first meeting with poet-activist Andrea Gibson and their wife, Megan Falley, when he was approached with the idea of making a film about the artist’s pending death. “I had never spoken with Andrea, I didn’t even know about Megan, so I didn’t have any idea that this film would end up being a love story,” says White.
Every three weeks for more than a year, White and his crew traveled from L.A. to Colorado to document the couple’s handling of Gibson’s 2021 ovarian cancer diagnosis that by the time they began filming had been deemed terminal. The resulting film, Come See Me in the Good Light, captures Gibson’s resolve to live out the remainder of their life with joy and purpose between a cadence of promising then discouraging treatment results and against a backdrop of hope that they’ll be well enough to perform one last live spoken-word show.
White talked with THR at SCAD Film Festival about spending the final days of Gibson’s life with them before their death on July 14 and why the documentary, released on Apple TV on Nov. 14, doesn’t end with their final breath.
Take us back to the beginning of how this doc started, with comedian Tig Notaro coming to you and essentially saying, “I want to make a poetry cancer film.”
So I’ve been saying to Tig forever, “Bring us a funny idea for a documentary. Why aren’t documentaries in the comedy genre?” So we were pretty appalled a couple of years ago when Tig called us and led with the words “poetry” and “cancer,” which truly could not be a less funny combination of words on face value. But Tig said, “Just hear me out. Andrea Gibson is a lifelong friend of mine. They’re one of the funniest people I’ve ever known in my life, and they’re confronting end-of-life with remarkable perspective.” At the time, I wasn’t a big spoken-word person, but we watched a few performances and fell in love with Andrea’s art form, with them as a potential character. So we said to Tig, “If Andrea is interested in doing this and meeting us, we’ll fly out to Colorado this week.” We met Andrea in their driveway in January of last year, so almost two years ago, and Andrea came out and gave me a hug and said, “Welcome to my home. I guess you’re going to be with me when I die.” And that’s how it all began.
Were you concerned about being able to find the funny in these circumstances and also relay that tone onscreen?
Well, Tig is obviously extremely funny. So I trust Tig, and I trust her sensibilities. And I think what Tig saw was not only a remarkable friend of hers but also the possibility of subverting this terminal illness genre of film, which there have been some great films in, but they’re often the most depressing things in the world. It wasn’t really until we got [to Andrea’s home] that I understood how funny they would be on camera. I think we can all agree, the funniest scene in the film is the fingering scene. [Gibson’s friend plays a voicemail of her saying Falley is going to finger them and get the cancer out after learning they have a bone metastasis.] That was literally that day I met Andrea in their driveway. We were standing behind the camera because we were still walking on eggshells. I felt very invasive. I was going into someone’s home as they were dying, so it was very tricky as a director. I was afraid, too, of the subject matter. I was very afraid at the time of mortality, my own and my loved ones’. So I was very nervous heading into the house. And then we were standing behind the camera while that fingering scene was going on, and I was like, “This couple is incredible.”
You and your crew were there in some of Andrea and Megan’s most tender hours as well, like reading the devastating results of their cancer scans. How did you handle those moments?
The crew was tiny. It was the same four people every time. Usually, the sound person might change depending on where you are in the world, and also availability because these people are very in-demand, but we flew in the same sound person for every shoot because we were building a little family. Megan and Andrea were also quarantined because Andrea’s diagnosis began during COVID, so they weren’t even really around friends and family that much. So we would test like crazy before we went, when we landed, before we went into that home. There are really only two locations in this film; there’s the house and sometimes the hospital, and Brandon Somerhalder, our DP, was often the only person in the hospital rooms with Andrea because they could take Megan and they could take one other person. So Brandon would go into the chemo treatments. He filmed on his iPhone, so it wasn’t disruptive to the other chemo patients. And he became a part of the couple, almost. It was like a trio where he was always there when they had these doctor’s appointments, like a shoulder to cry on for them. And I have to give [sound recordist] Dave Richards and Brandon a lot of credit. I was with Andrea maybe six or seven days before they died, but I wasn’t there when they took their last breath. Brandon and Dave were so in love with Andrea, and Andrea was so in love with both of them that they both flew out in the days before Andrea died and just laid in bed with Andrea and talked with them. All documentaries require an intimacy, but this one, with our crew and subjects, was on a level that I’ve never had in my filmmaking experience.
Gibson and Falley in the Apple TV documentary.
Courtesy of Apple TV+
Though Andrea is told their cancer is incurable, they also tell the doctor they want to do whatever they can to prolong their life. How did you navigate knowing how this story would likely end but not when?
When I introduce this film, because I think people are afraid to watch it or they’re bracing themselves for the saddest film ever, I like to tell the audience that it was the most fun I’ve ever had making a film and it’s the hardest I’ve ever laughed making a film because I find that gives people permission to sort of relax a little bit and laugh. Even in that final week of Andrea’s life in July, we were still having fun, but we didn’t know when it was going to end. It was definitely my understanding as a filmmaker, and I think Andrea’s and Megan’s, that we were going to document through the death, through the final breath. And that really changed in the edit room. I think Andrea knew this all along and was just kind of waiting for me to understand that this wasn’t going to be a death film, it was going to be a film about living. So it was a decision in the edit room: Why does Andrea have to die at the end of this film? It’s not what it’s about.
How has this project changed you?
It has changed the way I think about everything. The way I think about time, the way I think about my relationships, the way I think about my career. I was with Megan for the past few days, and I heard her liken [the process to] giving a candle to these four people and letting them light theirs. And Andrea’s hope in making this film, and the reason for them allowing the four of us in, was that it would continue to light these candles for people who would see the film. Andrea would constantly say to me, “Ryan, don’t let what happened to me happen to you. It took knowing I was about to die for me to see the beauty in this world and in my relationships.” That’s why they did this. And the way Meg said it is, “Maybe the world can be a little bit more illuminated after all those candles are lit.”
This story first appeared in a December stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.