Juliette Lewis as “Ariel” in SYMPATHY FOR DELICIOUS.

And I’d see an actor, like Juliette, she’s a perfect example, she was struggling with the scene you’re talking about but she knows essentially where I want it to go. And I know emotionally where I want it to go, and I said, “Listen, go after what your character needs, you’re either gonna fight him or fuck him.” She witnesses a miracle in that scene… You don’t witness a miracle like that and not have it affect you. I told her, “I don’t care, throw out the dialog, we need this emotional response right now.” I see Juliette is ready for that and she did it.There was places like that where if I had an entire day to do one scene, I could work with it and goose it and get it to where it was on the page but when you’re moving that fast you just gotta grab the lightening when you see it.

Was it always your plan to act in your first directorial effort?
No, but it’s part of the game because no one will sign on to a movie until you have someone attached. No one’s agents will let you do it and so I had to sign on first before I could get anyone else’s agents to even take me seriously. So, my plan was to get them all in and then jump off, and bring in someone else on I thought would be great for the part. And the day I went in to do that we had a change of schedule, and I had lost two of my lead actors because of scheduling conflicts. The movie was falling apart in my hands. And I came in to quit… My agent said, “You’re doing no such thing, dude. You’re all we have left!” I thought it was too much to take on both acting and directing but I needed to to get the movie on.