In a piece on this movie that aired on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," Eric Deggans said that the source book's author, Rebecca Skloot, told him in an interview that Henrietta Lacks's daughter Deborah Lacks Pullum wanted Oprah to play her in the movie version long before any movie version was actually in the works. Skloot said, "She always said, you know, this book is going to come out. It's going to be a bestseller. Oprah's going to make a movie, and she's going to play me. Like, she was just sure of it." Deborah died in 2009, so she was not alive to see that the book about her mother did become a bestseller and Oprah did play Deborah in the movie adaptation.
Alfred Carter Jr. plays Turner Station man #1 who donates blood for Henrietta. Alfred Carter Jr. is the real-life son of Deborah Lacks and grandson to Henrietta Lacks.
Based on the book of the same name, by journalist Rebecca Skloot. She was allowed unprecedented access to the Lacks' family in order to write the book.
Based on true life events.
Rebecca Skloot: The writer and producer of the film, as the nurse that, in 1950, goes and gets Henrietta from the waiting room and takes her back to her first appointment.