Interview: Filmmaker Destin Cretton on Getting Short Term to the Screen

We spoke to the writer/director of one of the most anticipated indies of 2013 about his amazing cast, how he got over his fear of writing from a female perspective, and why art is an essential form of self-expression.

Short Term 12 is one story that Destin Cretton couldn't get out of his head. Based on Cretton's own experiences working at a foster-care facility, the film's first incarnation was a short that made waves at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Through his own persistence and patience, Cretton expanded his short into a feature that premiered at SXSW 2013 and won the Grand Jury Award and Audience Award for Narrative Feature.

We jumped at the opportunity to speak to the writer/ director about first impressions, working with the incredible Brie Larson, and his unique approach to the directing process.

Tribeca: You made Short Term 12 originally as a short film, which premiered at Sundance in 2009. You then made the feature, I Am Not A Hipster, and then made Short Term 12 into a feature for SXSW 2013. What made you go back to your previous work?

Destin Cretton: After the response to the short, it encouraged me to want to explore the foster care world more. Up to that point, I didn't really know how universal a lot of the scenes were. So I wrote the expanded screenplay, but it just took a while to get funding. In the meantime, the screenplay won the Academy Nicholl fellowship, which then gave me a grant to write I Am Not A Hipster. I used that money to make that film while we were waiting to get funding for Short Term 12.

Tribeca: Why did you morph the male protagonist into a female one?

DC: It was really because I'd never written a female protagonist before, and it scared the crap out of me. However, looking at the story from a female perspective was also really exciting and gave me the opportunity to see the world from a different point of view. The weird thing I discovered was that a female character's point of view is not that different from a male's.

I guess in a way I learned that there is no clear difference between males and females. It's more about individual personalities and what people have gone through in their lives. I found through writing this script that I am a little like Grace, but there's also a lot of my three sisters in her too. Just like there's a lot of me and my sisters in Mason's character as well. That blurring of the lines took away my fear of writing from a female perspective. It's not so frightening to me anymore.

Tribeca: It's not often that you see a character as complex, messy, frustrating and loveable as your Grace. How did you know Brie Larson was the right actress to bring her to life? Can you discuss your collaborative process?

DC: The easiest mistake that we could have made with this character would have been to let her brood through the entire movie. I knew that Brie wouldn't do that. She just has something about her that is naturally vibrant and lovable. We were aware of that quality from the very beginning. It's a difficult tightrope to walk with a character who constantly has something really difficult on her mind but is still able to laugh at certain times. I think Brie just did a great job.

Brie was also able to go in and shadow the female supervisor at a place very similar to the one in the movie. She jumped in and experienced a pretty intense day. She saw a lot of stuff while she was there and learned a lot about the strength it takes to be a female in an environment like that. When she came back from that one experience, Brie was so much more of an expert on Grace than I was [laughs]. As for our collaborative process, it was just us talking about this character and each of the individual scenes and the different ways that we could take it. We figured out the best way to go about creating Grace for all parties concerned.

Tribeca: John Gallagher Jr. plays Mason, who is desperately in love with Grace. The two are polar opposites: he wears his heart on his sleeve while she internalizes everything due to her troubled past. How did you strike the balance between these characters?

DC: Grace definitely came first, but I think the Mason character came out of just trying to create the perfect person for Grace, specifically for her, and then create motivations for why he is the way that he is. He's goofy, weird and kind, and Grace loves him because he makes her feel safe. There's something very non-threatening and consistent about Mason. You have to have a lot of patience to be with Grace, and as the film unfolds you find out why Mason is the way he is and why he is able to have that much patience for somebody like her. For me, Mason is who I want to be more like, and Grace might be a little more the person that I am.

There are things of myself woven throughout it, but when I watch the movie, I see everybody's hands all over it.

Tribeca: I also heard you say in other interviews that the Nate character, played by Rami Maleck, is based on your own experience.

DC: Totally. All these characters sprung from different stages of my time working at a similar facility. I wasn't like Nate the whole time, but for the first two months, I was completely out of my element and scared out of my mind every day. I definitely said equally inappropriate things that I thought were fine to say until I was called out on them. [laughs] I think when I talked to Rami about that role; we talked about his character being the eyes of the audience. They're going to relate to every situation probably very similar to the way the Nate character does. I totally identify with him because it's frightening to be in a position of power and leadership when you have no idea what you're doing and when you know that a wrong move can have very bad consequences for some of the kids.

Tribeca:

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