I didn't know if, in the edit, it was just going to be too much. I think we shot it with both a slap and a shake because the slap was so intense. Matt Smukler: I had such faith in Kiernan and Dash by the time we shot the scene that he's talking about, but maybe early on I was worried about it. Which was one of the scenes that you either struggled most to get right or that was most surprising to you on the day? But I would say that time was the biggest issue, which I think probably everybody would say, no matter what the budget is.ĭash mentioned that the scene with the slap was one of the more challenging emotionally for him to film to get right. We were able to kind of visualize each other as a family and hang out, but we really just didn't have the time.įortunately, I shot-listed, so I had a blueprint that I was able to go off. We didn't have the luxury of being able to do an in-depth rehearsal, so we all got together at my house and everybody met each other. Matt Smukler: I guess the biggest challenge was the time it was a very short amount of days we had to do all of it. With this being your feature film directorial debut, what was the biggest challenge you had to overcome when filming it? This is who that character is based on." I think it was all on the page, and they didn't necessarily need to. I think they got enough because what's nice is that you're able to see that this is based on real people, but a lot of them wanted to bring their own stuff to it and make it their own.Īnd I really was encouraging of that it wasn't something where I was like, "No, you have to watch this and play this person." It was more like, "This is just a really unique and interesting family. I don't think any of them watched the doc, but they watched the trailer. Matt Smukler: I actually expected more of them to watch the doc. Speaking of that, did you want actors to watch the documentary and dig more into the family side of things, or to focus more on the script and the present film? It's inspired by her but then Kiernan took that, made it her own, and ran with it. She really did use this as a springboard to bring her own stuff to it, in terms of the character being based on my niece. Then we met very quickly, and I knew within moments of talking to her that she had everything I was looking for. She read it very quickly, which I'm learning now is not the norm in Hollywood. I felt like I remember seeing her and being like, "This girl is gonna be a megastar." She's so talented, so I sent the script to her first. She has this incredible intelligence, and there's a wise-beyond-her-years quality that I noticed even when she was in Mad Men. Kiernan, from the beginning, was right there. I feel like I got very fortunate in terms of getting a lot of my first choices. Matt Smukler: That's a really good question.
Who did you know you wanted from the start, and who was the most delightful surprise in the casting process? We went back and forth on that, but it was a pretty fast and super fun process. She wrote it really quickly I feel like we had a script within another six weeks. We started to really craft how we wanted this to go, and then Jana wrote the script from our cards. Then we met for about a month or six weeks and ended up making a board out of all the beats we wanted in Wildflower. We were working on this one project that she was writing, which was based on a book that a friend of mine wrote. Matt Smukler: I think we both share a very similar sense of humor, and we have a similar take on life across the board, in terms of what we gravitate to in movies. You already had a working relationship with Jana, but what was that collaboration like in this instance? How do you write together or bounce ideas off each other? I feel like that was something I wanted to capture. And then once they are off, obviously the real family can be themselves in some ways. It was one of those things where, oftentimes when the cameras are on, you only get one dimension. There is so much joy in their lives, and the family loves to laugh. But we talked about potentially turning a more comedic lens on it, and how that might be a more accessible way in for a different perspective. I believe I'd showed her some footage of the grandmothers, and she was like, "This would really make a great feature." We started talking more about it, although I didn't want to do that at first because I felt like I'd just spent six years on this. I was talking to my screenwriter, Jana Savage, while we actually were working on another project. But it soon became really apparent that there was a lot more going on, so I just kept at it. We did end up using it, and I think it helped her get into the right college. Matt Smukler: The documentary actually started as a companion piece for my niece, and it was really supposed to be a short piece she was going to use to help her get into college.
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