Netflix show boss' devastating real life cancer struggle after his character faked condition

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Sick Note has jumped up into the UK’s Top 10 on Netflix, just days after it was released on the platform earlier this month.

The cast definitely holds some of the immediate click appeal for such high viewership, with Harry Potter star Rupert Grint, Nick Frost, Lindsay Lohan, and Don Johnson all in main roles. But while people might come for the big names, they stay for the outrageous plot.

Sick Note revolves around Grint’s bored and immoral Daniel Glass, who is misdiagnosed with cancer by Frost’s incompetent doctor. Despite realising that the cancer is a misdiagnosis, layabout Daniel and chancer Dr. Glennis decide to roll with the lie, both realising they can gain something by keeping up the act. What follows is a series of hilarious - yet uncomfortable - events, with the cancer farce leading to deeper crimes and wilder situations.

For show writers and creators James Serafinowicz and Nat Saunders, Sick Note became all too real after James was diagnosed with kidney cancer, from which he’s now in remission. Speaking to the Mirror about the tragic turn of events, James made it clear that - much like their show suggests - dealing with tragedy can be made easier with a bit of humour.

Some critics have suggested that making a comedy based on lying about such a sensitive topic is wrong, but James and Nat stand by their efforts to find humour while also assessing human nature under such tough circumstances.

“What I’ve been through has kind of reinforced what we were trying to do,” James said, while Nat noted: “It’s a morality tale. Basically, the whole idea was this guy does something so unquestionably wrong, and then we put him through the wringer relentlessly for it. It just sort of spirals. Looking back at it, I don’t think there’s anything that we’d change."

Looking back at Sick Note now, both James and Nat pinpointed a particular scene from the very first episode, in which Daniel Glass is told he has cancer. James admitted that much like Daniel, he felt almost numb when told the news - but unlike his character, the diagnosis was very real.

Speaking of the scene, James shared: “It’s very similar to the experience I had when I was diagnosed.” The comedian described how when heading to the life-changing appointment with his wife he “knew there was something wrong” in advance when he was told to go in urgently following a biopsy, and was even met by his doctor in reception - with the medical expert being “really, really smiley, just like Nick Frost’s character.”

While in the appointment, James was then told that he had a “little bit of cancer” in his kidney, with the writer laughing as he remembered his confusion over what exactly that wording meant. James added that it “took about three minutes” for him to understand his diagnosis due to the “odd” delivery, and he exited the hospital “in a daze” - “like what happens to Rupert’s character” - despite having mentally prepared himself to hear the daunting words.

When visiting a second doctor, James found that the first had signed him up for a treatment usually reserved for “people in their 90s,” who likely wouldn’t have the strength to survive more mainstream treatments. James admitted that he immediately had a flashback to Dr. Glennis. “I just thought, oh God, I’ve just got a really incompetent doctor like the one we invented a couple of years before. Even though it was awful, it still made me smile,” he said.

James' and Nat's comedic skills remain obvious despite the heavy topic of our conversation, with Nat referring to the “menu” of cancer treatments his TV partner was offered and both taking moments to laugh and crack jokes throughout the retelling of such rocky moments.

“Which I suppose, in a way, is what the show was about. The British gallows humour…” James mused, with Nat picking up: “Even in adversity we tend to find ridiculous things.”

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