What was the impetus behind this movie?
High school was difficult and informative for me. I really figured out who I was and what I have wanted. There was a lot of pressure from my peers and my parents. I fought with my parents a lot. And I went through a lot of the same things these kids went through. I wanted to make a movie about this experience for a long time.
Was your high school and high school experience similar to what is depicted in the movie?
I grew up in Buffalo, New York. I started out being a girl from the cool clique—like Megan's clique. Then I realized that people I thought were my friends were not. I had a pink mohawk by junior year. But the role of technology in teenagers' lives is very different today. Teenagers today have a hard time understanding the longevity and consequences of their actions. They don't learn from their mistakes.
What's your view on the adults in this movie? Parents, teachers, counselors, and coaches seem clueless and out of touch or trying to exercise "tough love."
In this case, teenagers live a Lord of the Flies existence. They don't want adults to know what they're doing, because they think they'll disapprove. I was the only adult in their lives who was not an authority figure, which is why they opened up. In some cases, the adults were clueless while the teenagers were reaching out.
What surprised you about the teenagers?
I was surprised at how much I could relate their issues to my own issues. I was surprised at the timelessness of the issues they confronted. But, where I grew up, there wasn't pressure to stay close to home. In Indiana, nobody leaves.
Did making this movie affect your view of parenthood?
I never thought about what kind of parent I would be until I got pregnant. Realistically, it will still be hard when my child becomes a teenager. I will be an authority figure, unlike in this movie, where I was not. I think a lot of parents are suspicious of their teenagers. They think that kids are doing the worst: extreme sex, drugs, shooting up the school. This is mostly from the media, which presents the worst images. From this movie, maybe parents will have a better sense of what kids are going through.
