I thought the nightmare scenes were really good. A lot of movie depictions don’t ring true.
I hate dream sequences and because of my fear of bad, cheesy dream sequences, I made some rules for myself: we can’t treat them any differently than any other part of the film in terms of getting into them, scoring them. When they begin they have to look and feel like other parts of the film … I wanted to kind of sneak into them. The majority of the dream sequences is CGI stuff, so how do you take this very naturally shot independent film and blend big CGI elements into it? Luckily I had this special effects team who were really willing to work with me on making that stuff fit.

The film comes from anxiety about having a family and the state of the world. Was writing it cathartic for you?
It really wasn’t; of course this is a hyperbolized version of ideas I might be walking around with, but what I realize now in hindsight: I never treated the film as an attempt to try to answer anxiety, but I do think there is a message about how to cope with it. And what I realize now more than ever is, the hits keep coming, and whether they’re personal or out in the world, I think we have to find ways to process all that anxiety and somehow stay productive in the face of it all.

The role is obviously perfect for Michael Shannon. Did you write this with him in mind?
In all the interviews I’ve been doing, I’m like, “No, I didn’t write it for him,” but it’s not the whole truth.