Motivational keynote speaker, conferences and meetings, colleges and universities,corporations, school districts, government agencies, workshops, improve performance,motivation, keynote speaker, meeting planners, Stress management, change, personal development, staff development, educational, youth leadership, school assembly speaker, workshops, conferences, public speaker, motivation, motivational speaker, professional speaker, inspiration, trainer, self-help, personal development, inspirational speaker,consultant, speech coach, motivator,>

An interview with Brooke Ellison

An A&E interview with Brooke Ellison on the set of "The Brooke Ellison Story."

This film is based on your heartwarming autobiographical best-seller, Miracles Happen: One Mother, One Daughter, One Journey. Tell us about how the whole idea of turning the story into a film came about.
BE: Around the time my graduation from Harvard in 2000, there seemed to be a lot of media interest in my graduation. The New York Times had done a piece on me about my graduation. And kind of events of my life and things like that. Christopher Reeve had seen the article, and I guess became intrigued by it and contacted me shortly thereafter to ask me if I would be interested in doing a story about my life.

And actually in tandem, I was writing a book about my life. So they're kind of being conducted in parallel, both the beginnings of a script and then my book. So that's really how it started. That was four years ago. So, it's been sort of a work in progress since then.

Did you work closely with the screenwriter, Camille Thomasson?
BE: Yeah. We also met her shortly after my graduation in 2000. She came to my home that summer and we spoke for a while, and she stayed I think overnight, and got to know my family a little bit. We've actually become pretty good friends. She calls periodically. We've been working pretty closely on the script and generating ideas about what would be important to include as memorable parts of my life and things like that.

She's wonderful. She's really great. And it's great to have somebody who is not only dedicated to people, but to my family in particular working on this. You know, very sensitive and thoughtful and sweet. So it's been quite a blessing as far as that goes.

You wrote the book with your mom. What was it like collaborating with her on this project?
BE: I think any time you decide to take on an emotional, sometimes difficult experience such as writing a book about your life, it's almost therapeutic and definitely cathartic to have somebody to bounce ideas off of, somebody to collaborate with. We wanted to make sure that this book was not about my life, about me in particular, but about all the people who have come into our lives and have helped us get to where we are right now.

So, what better way to do that than to use the relationship that my mother and I have as a vehicle to demonstrate that? It's very emblematic of how people need to rely on each other. That things don't get done in isolation. People are very much social creatures. And, you know, my mother and I have a unique but not so unique relationship. You need other people in your life to make things happen. So that's why we decided to do it the way we did it.

You seem to have deliberately set out to not focus on the negative.
BE: Oh, thank you. I hope so. I think it’s an unfortunate, almost sensationalistic society that we’re living in right now, where people get kind of a titillating pleasure from seeing other people’s misfortune, or something like that. We were pretty resolute about not focusing on what could be a very negative dark situation, but on where light comes in and where beauty is, no matter how difficult things might be.

What does it feel like to watch your life story being filmed?
BE: It’s quite flattering. I think Christopher Reeve is doing quite a remarkable job in making the story detailed enough, so that it’s about my life and the lives of the people in my family and my friends, but at the same time making it applicable. So people can also draw some parallels in their own lives and gain some sense that this is not necessarily something that I’m going through. But, you know, I have challenges in my own life that I can look at now with maybe a different perspective or something like that. I hope that other people can gain some encouragement or learn something from what my family and I have been through.

Sometimes it’s a bit emotional. Sometimes it’s hard to see my life as it may have been in the past. The decisions that I made that sometimes I regret. Sometimes I feel a little bit of pain that goes along with that, but if I focus on the larger meaning, the larger purpose that’s so much a part of this, then, you know, it’s great. And by all means, it’s bizarre to see one’s own life carried out by other people, having other people say what you would say or relive aspects of your life.

You know, memories like that very typically just stay in one’s own head. To see them kind of being broadcast for other people to see, it’s very strange. But at the same time, it’s not very often that something like this comes along. So, it’s flattering, and exciting and hopefully helpful to other people. That’s really what’s most important to me.

You know, I don’t really view this as an end in itself. I think that there’s hopefully something that other people can engage in it, and hopefully give me other opportunities to help people in a more important way.

Did you meet both of the actresses who play your character in the film?
BE: Yeah. Actually, Lacey, who plays me as a kind of an adult, the older version, had come up to Harvard to visit me right before I graduated for the second time. She came to visit and to get to know me a little bit. And that was really nice.

I was giving a speech that day, so she came out to hear me speak and just to spend a little time together, which was really nice. And we have kind of been correspondents ever since by way of telephone or e-mail. So that was great. She’s really sweet, very down-to-earth.

And then, when we got to New Orleans last week, I met the younger version of Brooke and her family, and they were just wonderful, really, really great. So, we’ve been so very fortunate and so very happy with everybody who is a part of this. It seems to me that everybody’s very, very dedicated to it and feels some degree of passion about it. So that’s wonderful.

Your family has maintained a strong bond throughout this experience. Why do you think that your family has succeeded when so many others would have failed?
BE: Well, I've definitely seen that to have been the case. In situations like my own it's very, very difficult. And people are fragile under the best of circumstances. So it doesn't take much in the way of difficulty to cause problems that seem to divide people instead of bring them together, which is perfectly understandable.

I fully acknowledge that I'm very fortunate, that my family has been able to really come together, despite the circumstances. I think my situation may have brought my family even closer together, because when you're dedicated to a common goal, I think that there's really no time for people going separate ways.

It's been a very important part of my family's life to just offer support to one another and make sure that nobody kind of falls. You know, we're standing side by side, or sitting side by side, as the case may be. I think we all know that there's a responsibility that we all have to one another, to each other's successes, whatever it may be, and there's a common dedication to, to each other. I think that's probably where it comes from.

What have you been studying in college?
BE: Political psychology. That's what I was going to be studying in my Ph.D. program where I'm starting actually next month. My undergraduate degree was in cognitive neuroscience, which was a tie between psychology and biology. My master’s work was a little bit more broad than that. I kind of extrapolated behavior to more social behavior, to how groups in societies work and interact with each other. That was what I got my master’s in, public policy.

So now I'm kind of taking that a little bit further to political psychology and focusing mostly on how people or groups or societies learn to remove themselves from the decision-making process, from exercising their ability to make change in their lives or in their communities or in what have you. People can sometimes feel so discouraged by the circumstances that they find themselves in that they don't feel the desire anymore to try to evoke some kind of change in the positive direction. So, that's really what I want to look at, kind of in the political or societal realm.

What do you hope people will take away from the film?
BE: Well, several things. First, I hope that should they not be familiar with situations like my own, that they are to a certain degree enlightened by some of the difficulties that people -- not necessarily myself in particular -- but people in difficult situations face. I think that understandably so, people get kind of caught up in the details of their lives, and are sometimes unable to see what other people experience. How difficult day-to-day life is for other people.

And how certain parts of our society kind of fosters that situation, that there are barriers to just daily aspects of life that keep people immobile in one way or another, whether it's physical, emotional, anything like that. So, I hope people can be a little bit more appreciative of difficulties at large. Kind of using myself as a vehicle to get to that point.

And secondly, hopefully, if they are experiencing difficulties themselves or any kind of adversity that there's some kind of encouragement that can be brought about.

Did you give Christopher Reeve any advice in how you wanted him to tell this story?
BE: No, actually. I really trust his judgment in that area. I think, given the parallels between our lives, he's very sensitive about what needs to be demonstrated in a situation like my own. And as far as the details of my life, I think he's got a pretty good sense as to what I've gone through and what my life has been like. So, I'm trusting him and his creative talent. And so far, he's really just been masterful. He's done quite an incredible job. You know, there's certainly good cause to become frustrated or any number of emotions. He's definitely been very patient and very calm. I think he's doing a wonderful job.

Do you hope that this film will affect the way in which policies are made, regarding people who have long-term disabilities?
BE: I certainly hope so. I think those who are in the most dire or adverse situations are those who get left behind the most, often because they don't have the time or energy or wherewithal to voice their concerns or their needs or interests. And when that doesn't happen, it's very easy to leave them out.

You know, what goes unseen often goes unaddressed unfortunately. So, hopefully by my story being shown, some of those difficulties or challenges will be a little bit more highlighted, and people can say, well you know, this need is not going addressed. And it's a big need.