Gena Rowlands, a legend of the screen whose career has spanned nearly seven decades and countless awards including two Oscar nods and one honorary Academy Award, has Alzheimer's disease.

Her son, director and actor Nick Cassavetes, shared the news with Entertainment Weekly while looking back on working together on The Notebook for its 20th anniversary. Rowlands, now 94, memorably played Allie, the older version of the same character played by Rachel McAdams in the beloved romance film, who also had dementia.

"I got my mom to play older Allie, and we spent a lot of time talking about Alzheimer's and wanting to be authentic with it, and now, for the last five years, she's had Alzheimer's," says the director, whose grandmother, actress Lady Rowlands, also had the disease. "She's in full dementia. And it's so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it's on us."

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In a 2004 interview with O magazine, Rowlands opened up about how her mother's struggle with the disease impacted her decision to play Allie. "This last one — The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks — was particularly hard because I play a character who has Alzheimer's," she told the publication. "I went through that with my mother, and if Nick hadn't directed the film, I don't think I would have gone for it — it's just too hard. It was a tough but wonderful movie."

Cassavetes echoed these sentiments to EW, revealing one bittersweet memory from their time together making the film (available on digital platforms). Cassavetes recalls showing the finished cut to studio executives, who gave the note that they needed Rowlands to cry more at the end when her character finally remembers who she is and comes back to her longtime love, Noah, played by James Garner. When the director had to tell his mom they needed to do some light reshoots accordingly, the veteran actress was not pleased. "She said, 'Let me get this straight. We're reshooting because of my performance?'"

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"We go to reshoots, and now it's one of those things where mama's pissed and I had asked her, 'Can you do it, mom?' She goes, 'I can do anything,'" he recalls. True to her word, on the very first take, he says, "I promise you, on my father's life, this is true: Teardrops came flying out of her eyes when she saw [Garner], and she burst into tears. And I was like, okay, well, we got that... It's the one time I was in trouble on set."

Ultimately, Cassavetes is proud of the film that he and his mother made together — which he says "holds up pretty good" after 20 years. "It's always a shock to hear that as much time has gone by as it has, but it makes sense. I'm just happy that it exists," he says, adding, "It seems to have worked and I'm very proud of it."

You can get more information about Alzheimer's and dementia, find support services, make donations for research efforts, and more at Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Foundation of America, and other sites.