From a Head-On Collision to a Bestseller and a Documentary: Cesar Perez’s Chase the Light
“Just because something wrong happens in your life doesn’t mean you can’t give your life purpose again.”
Cesar Perez, author of Chase the Light
Cesar Perez was on the rise as an actor, with a role opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Beast of Burden and a part in Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris, when a drunk driver hit him head on at 76 miles an hour and a semi truck hit him seconds later. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, coded three times, and spent five years in and out of hospitals through more than 30 procedures. His mother told him to start journaling. That journal became Chase the Light, an Amazon bestseller in its first week, a documentary he directed and owns outright, and the foundation of a new career speaking to colleges and audiences across the country.
The rise, then the crash
Cesar had come up through film production and was starting to land roles when, at the end of 2017, everything stopped on a drive to Savannah.
“I got hit head on by a drunk driver going 76 miles an hour [...] And then a semi truck hit me head on as well, going over 70 miles an hour. And that’s kind of like where my life really went black.”
Cesar Perez
He lost nearly everything he had built. The next five years were surgeries, therapy of every kind, and relearning how to breathe, eat, walk, and talk.
A journal his mom told him to keep
Becoming an author was never the plan. In the early days he could barely move, and the one outlet he had left was a keyboard and one working hand.
“It was actually my mom’s idea. She told me, hey, start journaling [...] I started and I listened, but not because I was expecting to heal or feel better. I just did it because I couldn’t do much of anything else. I could only type with my left hand.”
Cesar Perez
The more he wrote, the less it hurt to tell. Over time the journal turned into a message he believed other people, in their own life-altering moments, could use.
Why he chose Scribe
Cesar had spent years in the film industry and already knew he wanted this story to become more than a book. That shaped who he published with.
“I went with Scribe because I started realizing that I wanted to create my own film, my own documentary. And I wanted to own all the rights to it and the IP.”
Cesar Perez
What the book produced
Clip · Cesar Perez on becoming a bestseller · 8s
Cesar said that if only his parents had bought the book, he would have been happy, because he had done what he set out to do. The book did considerably more than that.
“The book literally became an Amazon bestseller. The first week it was out.”
Cesar Perez
Because he owned the rights, he turned the raw footage his family had filmed throughout his recovery, plus interviews with the EMS crew and first responders and footage from the drunk driver’s criminal trial, into a documentary that is now on the festival circuit, with a feature film script already underway.
“I own the IP. I own everything. I want to be able to make my documentary, put it out there and just help anybody.”
Cesar Perez
The book also opened a speaking career. It started with word of mouth and now fills a calendar of college campuses and events, where strangers find him afterward.
“The fact that it’s helped so many people that I get messages from people that I don’t even know [...] tell me how it’s helped them get through their [...] recent diagnosis, whatever it is they’re going through.”
Cesar Perez
The reason it was all worth it
Clip · Cesar Perez on why it was all worth it · 12s
The accolades are not what he points to. It is the people who walk up after a talk and tell him his story changed how they see their own.
“To see the change, the lives that I’ve changed and touched with my story is something that [...] makes it worth it all in the end.”
Cesar Perez
Cesar still journals, still wakes at 5:15 to run and train, and is back acting again. The documentary is finished and the feature film is next. You can find Chase the Light on Amazon.
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