Today, she might be lumped into the legions of twenty-somethings suffering existential malaise and treated with heaping doses of Prozac. It was, in fact, Ryder's identification with the character of Susanna that propelled the project forward. I had been suffering from anxiety attacks. They were totally irrational and terribly frustrating because I couldn't explain them to myself. I really felt like I was losing my mind.
Psychological illness can strike anyone, anywhere.
That's one of the greatest elements of Susanna's story. The project floated Mangold's way via Ryder, who also received an executive producer credit on the film. With all the hoopla and publicity surrounding 'Cop Land,' it was moving that someone would seek me out because of this little movie about a fat man in upstate New York. The episodic nature of Kaysen's book made it difficult to translate to cinema. I needed to create some kind of architecture to hang this beautiful character on.