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It's about this guy Mark O'Brien

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who wanted to, he grew up in an Iron Lung

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he was paralyzed from the neck down,

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he wanted to know what a woman was.

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He wanted to know what intimacy...

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what sex was all about.

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So, he hired a surrogate.

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So, I think we could say

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...has some intimacy.

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Yeah, his therapist called me

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...and similar to what happened in the movie,

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and told me what his desire was.

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And that was to not to be a virgin.

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These guys...

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I don't know how they did it.

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I've never seen someone so un-self-conscious

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about being buck naked in front of the camera.

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I've been there.

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I've done it.

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It's not easy to do.

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We always work as a team.

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I call the therapist after every session.

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The client knows that I'm sharing

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what he says and what we do

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so we can make the whole process for him

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as beneficial as possible.

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Because things do come up when you're working with

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a client.

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Not just his erection, hopefully that happens, but

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you know, over time, but it involves a lot of emotional

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feeling.

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It's not mechanical.

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I have to feel something for a client.

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I have to like the person.

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I feel that most of my clients come to me

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and they're very brave.

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When I spoke to him on the phone,

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he told me he felt like he was on the outside

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of a restaurant looking in through a big window

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and everybody on the other side sitting and enjoying

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a fabulous feast that he would never be able to

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partake in.

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And I thought to myself,

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...and I said to him...

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You deserve a seat at that table.

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The surrogate Helen Hunt

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was asking her... Mark O'Brien,

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while she was playing Cheryl Cohen Greene

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at the time

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how he felt

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cause he had said to me in real life

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he felt guilty for a lot of things

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and one of them was that he

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had sexual thoughts.

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I mean he was only 6 years old.

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He felt that somehow God had

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punished him.

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And one of the reasons that he was punished

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is because he masturbated

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or he tried to masturbate when he was a child.

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Or a young adult.

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He explored himself in the Iron Lung.

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He thought he could reach his penis, and he couldn't.

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But he had sexual thoughts.

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He was not able to masturbate.

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But he had sexual thoughts.

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He also had a sister who died when she was

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I think 10, 8, or 9, or 10... I'm not...

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I don't remember clearly, but she died

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because his parents were paying so much attention

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to him and his needs.

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And he felt very guilty about that.

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So, there was the question of whether, you know...

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he thought that God was punishing him

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for... something.

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And that was what she was addressing.

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People knew from his writings how he had felt.

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So, Ben incorporated it into the screenplay...the script.

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When I'm with clients, I ask them questions.

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I listen a lot.

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Most of it is listening.

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and when they mention things that I think

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well, I mention... I tell the therapist everything

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after each session.

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So, we can see what, where we need to,... they

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the therapist and the client

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need to go to work on some issues.

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Most of the time, the therapist has

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worked on a lot of things with the client

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before they're referred to me

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but it's always, you know, you make that kind of connection

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with a person, being intimate with them.

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More things will come up.