Interview (Part 2): Destin Daniel Cretton

One of my favorite movies of 2013 is Short Term 12, so I was understandably excited when its talented writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton agreed to an interview. Our hour-long conversation did not disappoint.

Destin’s script “Short Term 12″ won a 2010 Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship. He used that to write the script for the 2012 movie I Am Not A Hipster which Destin also directed.

Today in Part 2, Destin delves deeper into Short Term 12:

Scott: There are three staff members key to the narrative. There’s Grace (Brie Larson), the protagonist, who’s deeply committed to her work and the well‑being of those around her. There’s Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), who’s Grace’s boyfriend, also committed to the job, but he seems to have a little more fun in life, and I suppose has less quote‑unquote “demons” than Grace does about her past. And then there’s Nate (Rami Malek), a newcomer to the facility, who provides an outsider‑coming‑in‑to‑this‑new‑world perspective.

Having worked in a foster care facility yourself, which of these three characters is most closely aligned to your own actual experiences there?

Destin: Well, in certain ways they all do. If I were to just break it down, the main character is very similar to who I was when I first started working there.

The first month I was extremely awkward, always terrified of both saying something wrong, doing something that might mess up a teenager more than he was, also just afraid of getting hit, because some of these teenagers were pretty big. But also underneath it all trying really hard, and sometimes trying too hard to do a good job.

I totally relate to that character, and I also completely relate to Grace and all of the things that she’s dealing with and her questions that she…her questions and her fears of becoming a parent and her fears of having that kind of responsibility with another human being and wondering if she might do something or mess up that human as much as these other kids that she’s working with and as much as she was messed up by somebody else.

All of those fears were things that bubbled up inside me while I was working there. That’s hard not to think about things like that. And the Mason character, honestly, is…when I look at the Mason character he just embodies in many ways the type of person that I wish I was more like.

Scott: Let’s talk about Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), an adolescent who’s introduced as a newcomer to the facility. One of the issues is she cuts herself and later we discover that’s something Grace has a history with. They also share a connection due to their respective relationships with their fathers who are both abusive. Is it fair to say that Jayden represents to Grace maybe on a subconscious level a younger version of herself?

Destin: Yes, whether you think of it literally or not, but that’s definitely…on an emotional level that’s how the actors are playing it. That’s what our conversations were like.

Scott: In some ways that’s a bridge, isn’t it, for Grace, because she discovers she’s pregnant, and so she’s trying to deal with that, and in dealing with Jayden there seems like there might be some kind of psychological connection.

Destin: Yes, completely. There is a definite emotional connection between the two, because at different moments they both know exactly how the other person feels, and so there are certain moments they bounce back and force between being the one who is vulnerable and being the one who is feeling empathy for the other person.

They both have their own moments of that with each other. Yes, they see themselves when they look into each other, and they feel like if the other person makes it, they can, too.

Scott: I’m curious then, how conscious were you of that dynamic when you were writing the part? Was it like a thing where you said, “Well, I feel like I need to have a character like Jayden in order for Grace to experience this kind of a projection of herself,” or was it more of an organic thing? It just arose unconsciously during the creative process.

Destin: It was much more organic than something that I contrived as a tool. A lot of those dots began to connect toward the end of the writing process once I had all these ingredients laid out. Some of these emotional connections just naturally came out further on as the characters had developed and as that relationship between the two of them developed in the writing process.

Tomorrow in Part 3, Destin discusses the unique way he handled important exposition with two key characters in Short Term 12.

For Part 1, go here.

The official movie site is here.

Destin is repped by WME.

You can follows Destin on Twitter: @destindaniel.

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