I am playing with the assumptions that we have in our everyday life when we are tripped up or fooled and we learn something, that makes things exciting - I am having fun with that stuff, but you have to manage it so it doesn't get too cute, that's what I trying to work toward.
Initially, it was about kids at the bottom rung of the social ladder, due to their looks and their class background. But they're also outsiders in terms of their peer group.
But what I did think would be interesting is if we created a fictitious story of our own, and then took these stories that we had collected and assigned them to characters who would be played by actors.
This thing that Colin Powell's son is expected to do is kind of scary when you think that television and radio and newspapers are what make people think what they think.
I like the way Wiseman builds a story in an unconventional way.
Kids who have no money are still figuring out a way - somehow - to dress nicely.
When you make work, your goal might not be first and foremost to have as many people as possible see it, but it might be more about honing your craft as a storyteller or making art, but, there's no doubt about it, you want lots of people to see it.
Right now the thing that I have learned the most is to be grateful that I have finally gotten to a point where I am being paid to make films, after eight years.
If you're a kid who's not necessarily attractive, and you don't have money, and you're not hip and cool, chances are you're not going to feel good about yourself and want to be an actor.
How you define yourself is a major issue for young people and adults alike.
Here were these college kids beating the Soviets and going on to the Olympic Gold Medal. To me, that's the greatest upset of all time in any sport that I can think of.
Working on the film really made me confront my opinions about change and gentrification.
I think there are some very evil things about gentrification.
I studied secondary education.
Toward the end of school I started watching movies. Got a job in a movie theater in Brookline, Massachusetts.
One day I had an idea for a movie. Everything came after that.
So, when you see a kid with ratty jeans on, wearing sneakers that aren't clean, you know they're in a certain place economically. I was interested in that experience.
Kids - in a really good way - can talk about their differences without the baggage that adults have.
On one hand, as a filmmaker, I don't want to make a movie with guns everywhere.
I still haven't figured out how to have fun on a shoot.
