Me, My Film, and My Massive Brain Tumor

Here are two things about me: I recently directed and co-wrote a film starring Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner. It’s called “Eternity” and it’s set in the afterlife. I also recently had an apple-sized tumor removed from my head.

Back in July, my partner, Stephen, and I were about to go on a long-overdue holiday before the premiere of my film in Toronto that September. From script to screen, Eternity had consumed four years of our life, so we needed to celebrate it. In the weeks leading up to this, however, I had been beset by migraines. I suffered with severe vomit-inducing headaches for years, which doctors always dismissed as stress. But this new migraine was accompanied by terrible double vision. So the day before our flight, my partner took me to the eye emergency clinic in Whipps Cross Hospital.

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Within an hour of arriving I could tell it was serious. As I was rushed from exam to exam, this weird sense of doom came over me. I began to cry before I even got a result. I told Stephen that he could have everything I owned, that I wanted him to be looked after. He gently took my hand and, to his credit, did not remind me that he makes more money than I do and being lumbered with my negative equity wasn’t that appealing. By the end of the day, 11:39 p.m. to be exact, a doctor brought us into a private room. She adopted the softest speaking voice I had ever heard and showed me a CT scan. 

I could see a large white area. I asked if this very large mass was my brain. She said that it was a tumor. They did not know if it was operable or malignant. It was both surreal and devastating. The validation of knowing my years of debilitating pain were, in fact, rather serious was a hollow victory. The impending idea of death was hard to take in—so my anxiety decided to take over.

I told Stephen to see if he could refund our flights. He said that wasn’t important right now. I worried about being buried in the UK and not at home in Ireland, where the funeral turnout would invariably be better. My thoughts then went to my film. After four years, I might not get to see Eternity being released. This time he did not say that was unimportant. He knew how important it was to me.

I spent the following weeks in hospital, transferring from Whipps Cross to a neurosurgical ward in The Royal London. Over time, things became clearer. They suspected it was an “aggressively benign” tumor, an oxymoron that meant it was probably not cancerous but so large as to be very dangerous. First estimates deemed it to be the size of a lime but that soon graduated to the aforementioned apple.

The tumor had broken through the lining of my brain and surrounded my optic nerves. My pituitary gland had been crushed and it was sidling up to my carotid arteries. The doctors told me they would try to operate—but it was risky. The risks included: stroke, brain damage, blindness, meningitis, and death. I dealt with this by treating it like a pick ‘n mix to choose from. I decided I’d prefer the stroke or meningitis to the others. Not ideal but, at least I stood a chance at recovery. I definitely didn’t want to be blind. Film is too important to me. I could tell Stephen was most worried about the risk of death.

My parents came from Ireland to stay in our house so they could visit daily. My brother and sister tag-teamed visits from Ireland too. I have never been the most gregarious person, but I very quickly discovered how many friends I had, some of them choosing to question my doctors based on ChatGPT results. They also brought me snacks and books and made me laugh. They even took Stephen for a much needed pint. 

If you want to see the best in people, go to a hospital. I mean, you shouldn’t unless you need to because that’s creepy but, still, people are incredible there. Not just the extraordinary staff but patients and visitors. From the woman who asked for her mute husband to have a pillow to cuddle because “he’s a cuddle-er” to the man who spent his days dabbing his impaired wife’s lips with a moist sponge. There was a day that the nurses played Steps on repeat for an elderly lady because it was her favorite band and they thought it would help her regain her mental faculties following surgery. I now quite like Steps.

I befriended the young man, Nabil, in the bed beside me who also had a brain tumor. When I suffered visual hallucinations, he told me about the time he first had them. Then we laughed while comparing hallucinations for a while. People pay good money for those. He was gone one morning. I don’t know what happened to him. I hope he is OK.

I remember telling my aghast U.S. colleagues that I was in a ward and not in a private room. I explained that wards are the best. There is a weird camaraderie that forms there. This was my first major run in with the NHS and I am now convinced that it is the 8th wonder of the world.

I was allowed home (on a cocktail of drugs) while my doctors planned the exact surgical route; via the nose or the side of the head. It’s odd going about your day knowing there is a tumor in there. You’re walking the dogs and going, “Oh yeah, there is a giant tumor in my head.” Or buying a coffee and wondering if the barista knows you have a giant tumor. Would the coffee be free if they did?

Weirdly, having spent years on a film set in the afterlife made me a little less scared of death. In fact, I felt a sort of contentment. After years of thinking about every possible eternity, I decided death was something to treat with curiosity and not fear.

Eternity is a film about happiness and love and what that is to you. So for years, with my wonderful cast and crew, we spoke about what love is to us. We spoke about our relationships, our parents and our grandparents. We also spoke about our losses. The film’s main character, Joan, says, “The beauty in life is that things end.” Even a long life is a painfully short thing. It’s what you do with that time, the people you love and love you, that counts. I had loved and been loved. I’d made a difference to some people. If that was to be it, then that was OK.

And I was so proud of my career in film—a career I’ve wanted since I wore out a VHS of Terminator 2 at the age of 10. Working in film can be a hard path with more downs than ups. You often struggle financially to make films that may never get released. But I had done it and I loved it.

“After this, I could die happy,” I often joked while making Eternity. To then actually face death felt almost prophetic. Through this film, got to create my own afterlife, something I had dreamt about doing since I was that 10-year-old boy who was terrified of his own damnation. And, in doing so, I got to say so much of what I wanted to say about what it is to be alive. It didn’t feel like a bad one to go out on.

My wonderful doctors enabled me to make my premiere in Toronto, which was just a week before my surgery. I was not well enough to speak to the press, but I did get to introduce the film to a room of 1,700 people in the Roy Thompson Theatre. I sat in the audience and listened to them laugh and cry. I got to celebrate with my cast and crew that I dearly love. I left Canada in 2024, after shooting Eternity there, filled with happiness. I left in September 2025, after premiering it there, again filled with happiness.

The night before my surgery I had a meal with my family. It was lovely. Admittedly, my burger was dry—but having what felt like could be my last meal with my loved ones was very nice. At 5 a.m. the next morning I prepared to go back into the hospital. I don’t think my parents had ever hugged me that tightly. I wanted to say that if the worst happens it’s OK and that I’d been very happy. I didn’t because it made me teary and I thought them seeing me cry in that moment would be worse.

The surgery was 10 hours in which they broke my nose and drilled into my skull in order to remove most of the tumor, leaving the edges that were in the brain and by my ocular nerves and arteries. It was simply too dangerous to remove in full. The space was replaced with swelling and cranial packing. For the first week, no amount of morphine could dull the pain. Eventually the machines that prevented me from moving were subtracted. Wires were taken away. First the femoral artery line, next the catheter, then the many cannulas, and finally the spinal tap.

After six excruciating weeks of recovery, I miraculously began to feel like myself again. The weird sensation of having a tumor in my head replaced with the odd knowledge that I now have an apple-shaped cavity.

Four of my surgeons came to the London premiere of our film. I gave them a shout out from the stage. They did save my life. It was the very least I could do.

I have more treatment ahead, another surgery and radiotherapy, but I am feeling optimistic. Through my treatment, I learned how important the people in my life are—but I already knew that pre-tumor. I also discovered I have an incredibly high pain threshold—but I think we all do. Human resilience is an extraordinary thing.

And I got to witness so many acts of kindness. That has been deeply moving. Our capacity for caring is pretty staggering. It has made me want to be a better person. And it has made me want to make more films.