"Ow!"
"Oh, fuck. My bad."
"Yo, what the fuck!"
[Bystander] "Oh, shit."
"You good?" [Laugh]
The gift of my sister not
only being my best friend —
Beanie Feldstein — she was in
Ladybird with Lucas Hedges.
And he would hang at our
house, my parents' house,
all the time with Beanie.
And she's like, "You gotta meet this actor.
His name's Lucas Hedges.
He'd be great for Ian in your film.
And Manchester hadn't
come out yet, I think,
and then I saw Manchester by the Sea,
and my whole instinct on
casting is [to] cast the opposite.
So if he's playing this person who has 
an inability to express their feelings,
it's obvious to see the obvious 
person who's going through that,
but Lucas is the most emotive, most
expressive, most sensitive.
So I was like, "Wow, what if that was layered
underneath this veneer of that?
That would be far more interesting to me."
And he just blew me away.
It's not him.
"You think you're pretty cool
with your ghetto-ass friends?"
And I'd say to the boys — like, there'd be —
that scene on the couch
with the video games is a very intense scene,
and I did it all in one shot.
I ended up breaking it up, but
I have it all in one shot.
And the night before I just
said to Lucas and Sunny,
"I'm doing this in one shot.
You guys better bring it tomorrow."
And they would work so
hard, and it was amazing.
And I'm just so proud of Lucas.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Every actor is different.
Lucas Hedges is different
to work with than Na-Kel [Smith],
and it's more interesting to
work with someone who hasn't
had bad experiences as an
actor, because they're coming in
scared, but they're coming in intimidated,
but they're coming in with no baggage.
"Hey, ya'll not supposed
to be around here.
Get the fuck out."
"Hey, the little nigga with
the Toys 'R' Us badge, come here."
"Hey, you can't say 'nigga,' I don't think,
You fucking Sheryl Crow–looking motherfucker."
[Hill] It's really just creating a comfortable space
to enable these kids to become artists,
and to believe that, the only way is to pour
your heart out completely,
and if you go 80 percent,
it's gonna be a zero percent.
And Na-Kel is just such a
soulful, talented man that it was
really about months of discussion
about who this person was
and what they'd been through
and really talking and listening
and allowing these people to understand,
through conversation after conversation,
who they're playing — not about 
"You say this line like this."
It's just, "How do they understand how these 
people's emotions motivate their actions?"
"You all right?
"A lot of the time, we feel
like our lives are the worst,
but I think if you looked
in anybody else's closet,
you wouldn't trade your shit for their shit.
So let's go."
It was unbelievable.
I mean, the most moving part to me was
watching these kids become
so serious about acting.
At lunch we would all sit
around and roast each other
and make jokes, and I saw
Olan, who plays Fuckshit —
he looked upset. And as the
director in a film with kids,
you feel kind of responsible to make sure
people are comfortable and good.
"I'm skating like shit today, man."
"Looks cool to me."
"I'm Ruben."
"Stevie."
And I saw under the table
he had his rumbled-up script,
and he was practicing and
rehearsing, and it was just
very moving to see how
serious he was taking it.
[Upbeat music]
