In the new film “50/50,” there is a scene where cancer patient Adam, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is on a gurney being wheeled into the operating room with his parents by his side. As the nurses take the 27-year-old away, he calls out for his mom like he’s a little boy. It’s an affecting moment, but for Matthew Zachary, it was particularly personal.

“That’s exactly what happened to me,” said the 37-year-old father of twins from New York City who was diagnosed withbrain cancer at age 21. “Literally I’m with my parents and they are wheeling me off to the operating room and I lost it. It was a horrible, horrible experience.”

For Heidi Adams, it was the scene at the dinner table between Gordon-Levitt’s character and his mother, played by Anjelica Huston, who wants to move in to help care for him.

“I remember that conversation with my mother, that struggle at that time in your life when you are discovering your independence, fighting for your independence and you are thrown back into this position where you need to rely on people, where you need your mom. It’s very disorienting,” said Adams, 44, from Austin, Texas, who lived with her parents for 2 1/2 years when [...] continue the story