00:00I know you mentioned that you said that you weren't sure if you wanted to play Ryle until a conversation with Colleen.
00:05What did she say that convinced you?
00:08Well early on
00:10when I first read the book I had an assistant at the time who said you should play Ryle.
00:14And I think we all have these moments where you know you read something or
00:18you have a dream about something and then that voice inside shows up
00:22and it's like oh you could never do it or you're not good enough or you know what a better actor should play that role.
00:26So I think that deep down I always wanted to try but I was afraid and
00:31I didn't let myself dream or think that I could do it and I would never want to ever harm the movie and harm this
00:36book. And then Colleen sent me an email just before we closed her option agreement.
00:41It was a very short email and it said have you ever thought about acting in the project? Ryle perhaps? I could see it.
00:48And I think that that email and her believing in me gave me permission to believe in myself.
00:54And then you know I thought long and hard about it.
00:57I had conversations with my wife and two years later in the development process is when I decided okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it.
01:04But I wanted it to be truthful.
01:05I wanted to be honest and and he's a very complex dark character that has a lot of pain.
01:10And I just don't know if I was ready to go there at the time.
01:12For sure and I know of course the movie and the book deals with some pretty heavy topics.
01:17What was the most challenging scene for you to either work through yourself or work through as a director?
01:23I think all of the scenes showcasing gender-based violence.
01:30I think that was very hard for me. I almost had to step out of my body. There were a lot of times.
01:36I've been thinking about it. It's hard.
01:38A lot of times where I would have to go privately into a room and just cry or shake it out and try to get him
01:44out of me and that energy out of me because
01:49it's too real.
01:51And there are
01:52there
01:54there are too many people
01:58that are the real-life lily blooms of the world that have to deal with that every single day.
02:02And I wanted it to be as real as possible and yet it was it was it was very hard to shoot those scenes.
02:11But luckily the only way it was possible is you know I had an incredible intimacy coordinator.
02:16I had an incredible stunt coordinator both of them were women and then there was Blake who honestly between those three women
02:21they really were the ones choreographing and navigating all of those scenes because I was stepping I needed to play Ryle.
02:27And in those moments to be perfectly frank, I really wasn't the director.
02:31It was those women that were that were in charge and from the beginning
02:34I wanted all the intimate scenes to be from a female gaze and I never wanted my bias to potentially you know
02:40interject and go into the film. So I kind of stepped back and
02:43felt all the things and allowed myself to do the work and and shook it off as best I could.
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