262 | Writing (and Directing) Intimate, Personal Films That Feel Cinematic (ft. Sorry, Baby's Eva Victor)

In this episode, Meg sits down with writer, actor, and filmmaker Eva Victor to discuss their debut feature, SORRY, BABY — a darkly funny, deeply personal story about friendship, trauma, and hope.

They dig into how to make a personal story feel truly cinematic, both in the writing process and on set. Eva also opens up about their determination to depict trauma without leaning on “misery porn,” instead highlighting the healing, humor, and humanity that can surround pain.

Thanks to Eva for an openhearted conversation that reminds us why we tell stories in the first place.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve, and today I am thrilled to be joined by Eva Victor, a writer, director, and actor. Eva's feature debut, Sorry, Baby premiered at Sundance this year to much acclaim, winning the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award before being acquired by A24 for a 2025 release.

It's produced by Barry Jenkins Company, Pastel, and the film stars Eva, alongside Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges, and has been praised for its stunning honesty and moving scenes of humor. I love this movie. It is my favorite movie so far this year, so I am just kind of bowled over to have Eva here, also the actress, so it's just my head is just like a little bit starstruck.

Before Sorry, Baby, Eva built their reputation as a sharp comedic voice writing for the New Yorker and Reductress making videos for Comedy Central and appearing as an actor in Billions. So, welcome Eva.

Eva: I am thrilled to be here. I seriously have listened to this on my lowest days, and it's very surreal for me too to see your face. So, so thank you for having me. 

Meg: We're both kind of a little bit–

Eva: –we're freaked out. 

Meg: We're freaked out a little. Okay. Alright. So Eva has agreed to participate in Adventures in Screenwriting. So I will start super simple my week 'cause it's the same as it was last week, which is, I keep, I have a writing partner, and we keep getting ready to turn this script in and then we give it to our manager and he comes back with more notes.

And…I'm a little burnt on it, to be honest with you. I feel like the stress of, ‘okay, we are past our due date.’ He keeps saying it doesn't matter if it has to work. That's what they care about. Don't worry about that. But I can't help it 'cause I'm a type-A, good girl, and now I'm late. And I just, you know, part of me, I don't know, Eva, if you've ever had this where you're like, ‘couldn't you have given me that note before? Like, this is a very big note! Why are you giving…but sometimes people can't see it until other things are fixed and then the other note arrives because you fix this other thing. 

Eva: Ugh. It's– 

Meg: –I know–

Eva: –it's a total issue of, it's like the mountain, the sisyphus thing of like, it's just, the more you open up, the more you see and then it's so painful.

And I also have the thing of missing the deadline. Like, I can't miss a deadline. And if I do, I'll freak out. But it's like to the detriment of whatever I'm doing, so, so I…

Meg: No, no, I'm totally there. Like my brain, I have like a siren going off in my head and it's hard to write, but I just keep breathing and trusting and, okay, we're gonna do it.

And I love, like, I'm so torn because the writer geek story nerd in me is kind of loving that revelation of, well, yeah, actually we kind of are cheating here because he–

Eva: –yes!

Meg: –he would do this. And then the, then I am freaking out because I'm watching the whole script unravel, like–

Eva: ugh. 

Meg: –and I understand when people give notes, they don't understand that, but when you actually get in there, you're like. Oh my God.

Eva: I know I can't, it's so heartbreaking. 

Meg: It's like, it's so heartbreaking. And I'm like, I'm just gonna, you know, then you're like, but I don't wanna do a bandaid-monster-either. I don't wanna just sort of fix it.

Eva: The amount of bandaid-monsters I have in my computer are, and I, I think I'm pulling it off, too, I'm like, ha ha. Got it! And it's so not true. 

Meg: No, it's so not true. You're like, I'll just add the line of dialogue in act one and it'll fix everything. Which of course it's not going to. But then I have, you know, I think we're gonna have a big choice, which is, this works well enough and if we get the note, we'll realize, oh, it's, it is a big, we have to really take this whole thing apart, or we…can do it. Like it isn't as big as I think, as I'm worried it is, and it's mostly just the alarm going off that I'm freaking out. 

Eva: Right. 

Meg: I mean, it helps to have a partner because they can keep me calm. They're like, you know, ‘Nope, it's not, it is not falling apart. Look, it's a, it’s b, it's fine.’ I believe it, but you know, then I have to give it to the next person to read. 'cause I'm like, I need more than one person to tell me that.

Eva: Yes. Well, you know, it's hard. You have to go so deep to, to do it, but then you, you get foggy because it's, you're so in it that you don't, it's hard to make sense of what's going on. So it's hard to even know what you did and what to do, and giving it to someone else is good, but it's also horrible.

Meg: But it's also horrible! And then my brain is always trying to track the whole thing, even as I'm writing this scene. Okay, so here's the note in this script, and is this tracking–

Eva: –Right!

Meg: I'm starting to outline again because I'm just like, ‘where is his track? Does it make sense?’ 

Eva: Yeah, you're aware when it breaks. 

Meg: Part of me loves it!

Eva: It's the best! It's the best in the world. 

Meg: It's like it's a puzzle. But not when it's due. Not when it's due, because then I'm screaming. Okay. So that's my week. 

Eva: No, totally. I seriously am with you. 

Meg: Well, how was your week? 

Eva: You know, it's been such a weird…year, so far because I have been doing press and I didn't know what it meant to do press for a film until I was doing it, and I think that's true for this whole journey, since it was my first film. 

Like I did not know what was coming. And I think that was good in terms of, I gave myself, I gave everything my all at every point. But I'm exhausted. And I also am, I'm restless because I press is wonderful and it is not creative in the way that I need to feel like I'm a person who's alive and finding purpose.

So I am, you know, in that private place of putting something together and writing, which is really lovely, but I'm on a break while someone's reading, and I don't like my breaks, and I'm trying to do the thing where I lay in bed and watch tv, but I can't, like I'm too restless and I don't know how to rest.

So I'm, I'm supposed to be on like a rest week and it's not happening, and so I don't know. I'm, I'm feeling tied up inside and I really just wanna get back to my story, but I am too blind to it to see what it needs. So I'm in that sort of nightmare zone of wanting to be in flow, but I need to take a second.

Meg: Yes. Yes. And I, the flow is so fun, isn't it? And it's hard.

Eva:  I mean, it's what we're alive for, isn't it? And it's one second every 12 years, like. 

Meg: I know, right? It's literally so hard, literally right now I'm in flow and so I was writing, trying to do this rewrite, and I was like, I actually had fun today. I'm amazing! And then I read it, I was like…yeah. And then I was like…no, that's not good. This is not good. It doesn't matter that it was fun. It doesn't matter that it was fun because it doesn't work. 

Eva: Wait, so you quickly know whether something works. 

Meg: Sometimes. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I am the biggest adamant fighter for something that later I have to be like, yeah, no, that doesn't work.

Eva: Yeah, well I get that. I mean, I was in the edit, like we're fighting for this scene and it was, the film was genuinely throwing it up, like the film was rejecting scenes and I was like, we'll, we'll just squeeze it on in. And I had to accept like, this will not make it.

Meg: Oh my gosh. I have to ask. I should wait until I get to that, but I can't help it. What was a scene that you had to face that you had to, tell me. Tell me. 

Eva: I, this is such, this is therapy. I wrote, so my script had these things in it that I really loved and I feel like was part of the reason people wanted to make this script, honestly. 

And it was these, like, interludes in the film of different people eating sandwiches who we never met and were sort of just like two, we dropped into two different people, sets of people, eating sandwiches. 

One was two undergrads talking about like, ‘what's a panini, and missing home,’ and then another was in the courthouse. There were two women gossiping about the case over like a sandwich during their lunch break. And I really loved the scenes when I was, I just loved what they did for the film in the script.

They were like moments when we got too…I thought of them as relief for the audience. Like we got to leave Agnes in like a dissociation and go to two people and their conversation, and I wanted it to feel like a rest. But ultimately it, in the edit, I discovered that it kind of diffused any tension we were building.

And, and we actually don't wanna leave Agnes. We need to feel that she's stuck, like–

Meg: –we have to be stuck with her. 

Eva: Exactly. And it was too…deflating. But it took, that's one of the long ones that I took. 

Meg: No, I love that so much. But, and one of my favorite scenes, and my son's favorite scene, which we had a long conversation about it 'cause we loved it so much, was the sandwich shop scene where she’s–

Eva: –thank you–

Meg: outside sitting with a stranger.

Eva: Yeah. 

Meg: Who's a great actor, wonderful. And it's a, it's a conversation about nothing and everything. And it just felt like the whole movie. And yet–

Eva: –thank you– 

Meg: –to me, if I'm handing in a movie to, like, a giant studio, I'd be so afraid they're gonna be like, what's this? Cut this? And you know, you're like, no!

And it's so I, tell me about that scene. I know I'm jumping way ahead. Don't worry people, we're gonna go back and do all the basics, but I have to know about this scene. 'Cause it sounds like it might have come from the sandwich or been part of that, or no?

Eva: Yes! There was like the two main characters eating the sandwiches on the beach and then this was sort of an, the fourth in a set of sandwiches, was John Carroll Lynch, who plays Pete, eating a sandwich with Agnes after a panic attack. And, I mean, I have discovered about myself that I really like a, I love the banter and I like the scene is, I think, like six pages in the script and we made it like a few minutes. But I think that's kind of part of it is getting a sense of who he is.

And he had this, like, really long monologue at the beginning about his son having, like, a gun and stuff. I don't remember if that's in there, but, he said a lot of different things about, like, working out and how hard it is. Just like a lot of stuff. And, but I, you know, I think it was just about beyond what they're saying, like they are outside. She is sitting on a parking block and this man, who has this sort of intimidating look, is sitting on a parking block at a like safe distance. There's open air. He's feeding her, which is, like, a kind thing to do. And it's like a moment of her being okay in her body, and, I think because he is a stranger, the stakes get so much lower for her.

And so finally she can be honest about it. I think she's not afraid that he'll be scared of what she says. So she tries things on and she's like, she's like, ‘I feel guilty when I don't think about it.’ Which isn't something she would say to like someone who knows her 'cause they would hold her to it. 

Meg: Yeah.

Eva: But a stranger can kind of see it more clearly. And I think in a movie full of people who are the age of grad students and who are in that particular flux of life, like he comes in as this more parental energy to be like, oh, ‘that's a really long time.’ I mean, it's not that long, but it's, you know, there's a gruffness to it and a having seen-life-attitude that I think is really helpful to the film.

Meg: It's so helpful and it's, and it also, it seems like I said about everything and nothing. And yet you also intuitively know it's a step of her healing. It's a step of, of her progression, like you said, to sit here with this man who's a stranger and yet feels safe and is nourishing her. It's, it's genius.

And I am really interested in, did you write much longer and then let, play, with the actors knowing you would edit? Or you know, because sometimes, I am realizing I have to let myself write long. I, when working at Pixar, you just can't, it's going too fast. You just cannot overwrite. But I actually need to, in order to find the three sentences.

Eva: Yes. 

Meg: I wrote like five pages. Is that how, how you're writing or are you doing it with the actors?

Eva: I wouldn't, if you had told me I was gonna cut anything from the film, I would've been like, ‘there's no way. We aren't, every line of dialogue has a thing that it does.’ You know, like, that's my thought. And by the time you get to the edit, you're so, you are so aware of how much the film needs to function and not like each scene individually.

It's just such a like, well, what's best for the film soul, not for my feeling about this. You know, it's just you have such a bigger scope to, you have to see more. 

But no, I, you know, and every actor was kind of different, which was cool. Like I think Naomi, after I casted Naomi, I went in and did like a Naomi pass, which was, she just had this, I loved her accent and I loved that she called me babe all the time. And, so she changed some words around on set to like, feel more like in her mouth. 

Lucas wanted to do it word perfect, so he did it word perfect. And Kelly, who plays Natasha, did a little improvising. So it was all sort of…to each actor, but I, I had no idea what I would be faced with in the edit.

So, but you know, the script was like, when I gave it to Pastel, it was I think 127 pages. And Barry was like, you wanna cut 10 pages because you're shooting for 24 days. And like, give yourself, the gifts, right? And so I cut like…8. But I, but it was, the film ended up being 20 minutes less than that. So a lot went. 

Meg: And I just wonder, and I want our emerging writers to hear that and, and myself, by the way, that sometimes you have to do that. You have to let it be what it wants to be, 'cause you can't see it yet. Like I do feel like that's happening to me right now. In my writing, like when you talk about the ‘over what the film needs.’ I'm starting, I'm so far down in the weeds that I don't know. And it, you just have to get yourself some perspective. 

I also love what you said about purpose. You know, that you're feeling, gosh, ‘where, where am, I'm not writing and, and, and what's my purpose?’ And I feel that way too when I'm not writing. My husband has a great word for it. It's called, he calls it ‘extreme rest.’ Like an extreme force. 

Eva: Oh my gosh. 

Meg: Like an extreme sport. How you would just sit there and–

Eva: –you try not to breathe or something?

Meg: Just, no, just rest. It can feel like work because we're so not used to it. 

Eva: Oh God. I need to talk to him.

Meg: Okay. So, talking about these beautiful scenes, the tone of your film is so specific and beautiful.

Eva: Thank you.

Meg: And I'd love to talk about getting there on the page. And, and then in, in directing and in edit, like the tone is going to go through its paces and all of those stages. Because you come, not just from comedy writing, but you know, in terms of where you've worked before, we know that you're this incredible talent in comedy and now you've, now this is really a drama with comedy. That's how I would– 

Eva: –I think so too. 

Meg: Okay, good.

Eva: Don't tell anyone else I said that.  

Meg: And you're taking on a pretty, let's say, heavy topic of sexual assault, but not going at it directly in terms of this is a movie about sexual assault. The tone itself is creating this beauty and the exploration of this woman's experience and healing. 

So on the page, how did you find this tone and this balance between comedy and drama and let's say darkness or heaviness and just life? Normal, mundane life?

Eva: Yeah. Well, you know, the thing I wrote first was the scene where Agnes tells Lydie what happens in the bathtub. And that was really heavy.

Meg: Hmm.

Eva: And then I put it away for like months. 'Cause I was like, okay, that was too heavy for me. And, I also really wanted to find a way to make a film where this happened in it, but the film, I wanted to be about trying to heal and I wanted it to be about friendship being this, like, way to survive something.

Meg: Hmm.

Eva: So it was difficult for me to understand structurally how to support that desire. So like, if I make the midpoint of the film, like, the assault or if I make the ,like, inciting incident, the assault, it feels like then it takes on this weight in a way that actually isn't what my film's about.

So it was really about, once I unlocked that, I want this film to be about friendship, okay. Then actually the assault scene gets us to a moment in the bathtub where this friend holds this other friend and that's the middle of the film. And then the beginning of the film is this reunion amongst friends.

And then the end is like, dealing with this new life that this friend has brought to Agnes and she has to like reckon with. So, once I understood that, oh, I'm making a film about friendship. Okay, there is comedy and joy and humor to be uncovered here. And I think like, I, I don't know, I think a lot of the writing of it was quite instinctual because I, personally in my life tend to have, like, a dark humor around this topic just because it's a personal story and like that's how I cope. 

But I think in retrospect in looking at the film, and being in the audience with people enough watching the film, I feel like there are three reasons people laugh. And I don't know if it's ever because something's actually funny.

Like I think it's, the first one is seeing a friendship can feel really warm and cozy, and it can feel like we're a part of this sort of giggle fest. 

Meg: Yeah. 

Eva: And that can feel good. And then also I found out, which is very humbling to me, that people think Agnes is weird, and awkward. So there's some like fish outta water stuff that I think makes people laugh or squirm or something.

And the other thing is, when the film tells you who to laugh at, there's like a catharsis there. And the release is laughing. But like, I think the most heightened scene in the film is probably the scene at the doctor's office. And to me, the reason that's serves in my head more as relief than as drama is because the film is heightening enough to be, like, reminding you it's a film and saying, ‘we hate this doctor.’ Like the film hates the doctor. Right? 

Meg: Right. Well, 'cause we love the girls and we love the friendship. Right. And they hate him. 

Eva: Right. 

Meg: So we're so in their emotional point of view. 

Eva: Right. 

Meg: And at the same time, I will admit, like socially as a woman, you're like, ‘yep, yep, yep.’

Eva: Right? 

Meg: This is, this is, it's so authentic. It's such an authentic experience and, that you get to laugh, at it is such a relief to all of us. 

Eva: Thank you. 

Meg: It's such a relief to laugh at it.

Eva: And there's, like, then as a director, you get to shoot it in a way that's like, okay, so we're gonna shoot in the doctor's office. Like there are two shots, like a buddy comedy two shot, so we get to edit and there's comedy in the edit, whereas in the bathtub, like it's dramatic.

So we stay on our face a lot, you know, there's ways to sort of point towards tone in how in how, in pace too.

Meg: Yeah. And I think your directing really held it all together, you know? Thanks. The tone of you as a creator really held all of those moving tonal pieces. 

Eva: I had a lot of helpers. I had a lot of people helping me. 

Meg: So, I love that the movie is about friendship and I love that you structured it that way. And you let us know immediately this is about this friendship, or friendship in general. Is there anything, as you made the film that, that you kind of became enlightened about friendship, in terms of, you know, sometimes when I have emerging writers, they're like, well, it's a love story. I'm like, okay, that's start. But what about love? 

Did you find anything specific about friendship that you realized, oh, I'm really digging into this. Is it, it's healing it? That's what it felt like to me, but I don't know. Like what, for you, was it, and when did you know what you were doing? 

Eva: Yeah, I mean I really, there's all these different times in the process where I feel, like, you learn about what you are making. And I think one of the big ones, I kind of knew going in that like this friendship is just, romantic and intimate in a way that, and that's the love story of the film. 

And I've always thought that about, like, this kind of friendship, that it's cozy and it's so loving and we don't see it so often. So, I knew that that was something I wanted to just like, put on screen. But I think like something else I learned what, there were kind of two things like about selfishness and how sometimes taking care of yourself is the best thing for the people around you.

Like I think about Naomi's character, Lydie, and the reason why I imagine their friendship can last a long time is because she goes and does her life and she takes care of Agnes, but she goes and she, she learns about herself and she has this, like, complete transformation of discovering who she is and, and finding this family. 

And Agnes is like quite stuck. And I thought that it's this sort of mark of the end of the film, for me, was this person who's forced into being very selfish and only thinking about herself at the end of the film has a moment of like, ‘oh, I can see that other people wanna do something different than I wanna do. I'm gonna sacrifice and, and like babysit for 20 minutes.’ 

Which is such a small thing. But, like, the idea that she could, that the mark of the end of the film is she can finally kind of see outside herself, but the time she spent thinking about herself is kind of essential, but also makes her kind of like a child, like something about friendship, waxing and waning and love and, and taking care of yourself is a way to show love to someone else.

Meg: I also loved, it was a way of her friend saying to her, the baby sitting at the very end, ‘you're capable.’ 

Eva: Totally right. She said, ‘I trust you for 20 minutes with the baby.’

Meg: ‘I, I trust you with my baby. Which at the beginning of the movie, I don't know that she would've. In terms of, I just, there were these little subtle shifts in the arc of the friendship that were so beautiful.

Intimacy. Yes. The intimacy. I love how you created that. I think, you know, for the writers out there, you know, I hope you can go watch this, because watching the writing of the friendship is top notch. I don't even know. I just, sometimes I'm like, I could never do that. 

Eva: Yeah, right.

Meg: Like, it's so good. Was it based on, my brain was like, oh my God, it's so authentic and so breezy and easy and real. Was it real? Did you, did you have inspiration from a real friendship or did you just follow up? 

Eva: Yeah. I have the best friend in the world ever. And I'm really lucky and it is the most, um, long relationship I've ever been in.

And it's really, like, a lifesaving friendship and it just, the depth of the love just is, I think it's really transformed me and made me believe I can do anything, which is like what movies tell us, like boys and girls do for each other. And I feel like I really have gotten this full, full love that's been very transformative for me in my life.

And so I, yeah, I think I wanted the script to feel like it held someone the way a friend could. Like, who was watching. Like, I wanted the film to feel more like a hug. And I feel like films about this in my experience, have felt as I've been watching a, a bit more like a shock, deliberately, but like, I was interested in not doing that. 

Meg: Right. And interested in the repercussions of it and, and where she can go and heal.

Eva: And I have this theory that like, if, or I'm just like, what makes a tragedy? And what makes something not a tragedy? And like, if Lydie wasn't there, this would be a tragedy.Like it would, she would just be completely alone. And it's like, that is the thing that makes this able to move through different tones, I think.

Meg: Yes. That's spectacular. I love that. Dialogue. We get a lot of questions from writers about crafting great dialogue. You, from your movie, are a master. 

Eva: Thank you. My God. 

Meg: So how do you, you know, it, it does feel like, I think it was our producer, Jeff, who mentioned it this way, like you're, we're eavesdropping on real conversations. 

Eva: I do that.

Meg: Haha, okay. Like it's just so good. Would you have any, what would be your advice to emerging writers about dialogue? Or how do you get there?

Eva: That's a good question. I really like dialogue. It's like the zone I feel more comfortable in because I feel like I could, like, I like when people are talking for a long time, and that's actually sort of also the issue, is that I find that other things I, I'd like to be. It's just the muscle I've used the most. I don’t know why. 

But I find, like, there are, if I don't feel that that connected to a character and don't know how they talk, they're like…sometimes honestly reading a book, and like seeing how someone else writes dialogue, but not in a film because film can make you feel crazy because it's what you're trying to do.

Meg: Right. That's great.

Eva: And then also, yeah, I mean choosing an actor can be really helpful. And choosing an actor who you couldn't, like, who's the wrong age or the wrong gender, I think is also really helpful. 'Cause then you don't have to feel sad if they can't, you know, like it doesn't have to be scary Like, I want to cast this person. It's more like, oh, I love that vibe. 

But I also think like, a trick I really found helpful was like. If I was going to set that day, would I be excited to play that role? 

Meg: Yes.

Eva: So, so if it's a scene that that doesn't fit into, and this feels like a scene, that's a filler in between scenes, no one's gonna wanna shoot that at 6:00 AM. And then also, like, if I was given this role, would I say yes to it? 

Meg: What do you look for? Like, what do you, as an, that's such a great, one of my questions. As an actor, how has that helped your writing and, or, as an actor, what do you look for in a role? 

Eva: Well, you can tell so quickly if someone has read the role on its own. Like if someone has looked at all your scenes and it, it just, it, or whether you are in there to do something for someone else. And even if you are in there to do something for someone else, that's not even an issue. It's more just like, do I, am I consistent?

Meg: Mm-hmm.

Eva: And. Actually every scene I shift in a way to make that person's thing make more sense. That's like, well then if I get to set, you're not gonna care what I think. You know, it's like there's sort of this thing of you don't care about this character, why would I ever throw myself into it? 

'Cause as an actor, it takes so much to throw yourself into something like it just takes over your whole life. And it should, that's like why we love to do it. But yeah, I think it's like a really just a pretty technical thing of like, have you isolated the scenes and read them all in a row? Because after an actor read your whole script–

Meg: –That's what I have to do. That's what I have to do. 

Eva: Like I do too. Like I never, I'm not doing that, but I know I need to. But it’s scary too. 

Meg: It is scary too, it is so scary because, like I said, started things, shit starts to unravel. 

Eva: Yeah. 

Meg: Because you're doing things for plot and you're like, but for the plot, I need him to do this. And you're like, he would never do that. Crap. 

Eva: I know. They tell you so quickly, if they don't want, if they're, like ,not gonna do it. 

Meg: Right, or you didn't earn it. Why is he doing this? Why is he protecting her? 

Eva: Right, when you don't earn it, it's just like, well, why don't I just never do anything again? 

Meg: Exactly.

Eva: I don't know. When you say that, I'm like, well, how do you earn something? I don't know. Like, I'm freaking out. 

Meg: I know, I'm freaking out. You mentioned that some people think your main character is awkward. 

Eva: Right? And I’m like, she’s just fine. 

Meg: I think she's amazing and she's a great example of, and I couldn't tell you the scene. I would need to see it again. I saw it in the theater. 

Eva: Thank you for going in the theater.

Meg: No, of course. And when I fucking love her, 'cause I just fucking love her. And I, I love her awkwardness. Awkwardness, to me it's, it's not a negative thing. She's just authentic and real and doesn't know how to sometimes be here and we're meeting her after the assault and like you can kind of tell something's wrong. Her friend's really worried about her, and yet nobody's saying anything. I don't, I thought it was genius. 

So when you were writing her, you weren't aware of her being awkward really, or were you not, awkward is even the right word, her personality?

Eva: Yeah. You know, it's this weird thing of usually, like, you try to figure out your way into a character, but I feel like the joy in making her was figuring out how I was different from her because it was a personal story and I wrote it for myself crazily enough and selfishly enough. 

So I was like, okay, well the joy of this is going to be where are we different and how can I, how can I do something, and not just my do myself?

So yeah, I mean she, I find her to be quite aspirational personally because I think she's really blunt and it's kind of was this like this sort of…wish fulfillment thing of what if you said what you were thinking in these moments? And then also she's pretty comfortable in silence, or she's comfortable with other people being uncomfortable with silence.

And I'm not. And I liked her in that way and I always thought of her as like this whale. I don't know why. Like, I would always listen to whale sounds and I just, I think she's just moving at a different pace and that makes everyone else uncomfortable.

Meg: That's so what it feels like in the movie. Not that she's a whale, but that she is moving at a different pace than everyone. And it is aspirational. I'm, my brain is exploding. 'cause it's exactly how it feels. You're putting words to the experience that you have with her that is so profound. Because she is aspirational in that way. 

I'm trying to write a character right now who's aspirational, 'cause she doesn't give a shit and she's make it happen. It's so fun. It's so fun. 

Women, a lot of women emerging female writers write women who are disempowered victims, they don't have any say. They're reacting to everything. And I understand that's because that's how a lot of women feel in our lives.

Eva: Yeah. 

Meg: I just wanna encourage people, it's also really fun to write the opposite. 

Eva: Yeah. 

Meg: Even if people are like, ‘I can't do this.’ I love what you're saying. You made her do something that you can't do.

My son wanted to know, he's trying to write a project that is based on his life with his brother. But, he's finding it hard because he feels very vulnerable and it feels so real. It feels too real. 

Eva: Yeah. 

Meg: So one strategy, as you said, is to give them qualities that are completely maybe even the opposite of you. Did you have any other strategies to be authentic, and dig into that, what we on the show called ‘lava,’ and yet not have it overwhelm you?

Eva: Yes. You know, the personal part of the story is woven in in a way that I feel is very protecting of myself. Like I don't know if people know what's true and what's not true, and that way, I feel safe to have my truths in there. But I think the thing that really helped me and made me feel like I wasn't, like, making an autobiography, but instead was an artist who got to be in charge of it, was I got to build this world around this character that was invented.

So I got to put it in New England and I got to put it at this institution and build these characters around her that are for, for her. And they're like, it's like a support. Like the whole world gets to be supportive to this very personal story. And in the real world, it really feels like things are random, and that's what's so hard. And the beautiful thing about getting to write a film is you get to try to make meaning and find a story that is cohesive amidst, like randomness of real life. 

So, I found a lot of joy in saying, well, okay, I don't know anything about being a literary grad student, I'm gonna take this course about the American novel and, and I'm gonna read, and that's gonna really inform how these people are moving. And, I'm going to spend time in Maine, which is where I wrote it. And I felt really inspired by the place in the snow when I, I never lived somewhere with snow. 

So, and also the like, character of the professor, even though he's obviously this horrible guy, is supportive to Agnes in this story I'm trying to tell, just in that he does something that works in her story and, and it makes the story cohesive.

So that building of the world, that's almost like, what's my snow globe? Because, but I am me. Or like, there's a version of me in there, but like, what world am I in or what's, how can I find the world that makes this person's journey the most clear? And that can be so inventive, and that's fun. That's really fun.

Meg: That's so profound. 

Eva: I don't even remember what I said. 

Meg: Well, we have the recording. We have it recorded. And we get this question. So I'm so excited for our writers to hear that insight. You mentioned the professor, you mentioned two things I wanna come back to. One is the professor. I would love to talk about developing his character. 

Eva: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: As the person who does the assault because it is a very different way, not very different, it's a more…it felt very real. I dunno how to say it. It didn't feel like the bad guy's coming, you know, predator, and yet something was creepy and you're not sure.

And I also would love to talk about, and I think it might be connected to this, your choice of how you shot that assault, which is to not shoot it. But let's start with the professor.

Eva: Yeah. You know. I always knew that he was gonna be this guy who, like, comes in for two scenes and then leaves. Because the story's really not about him. And it was important to me that, like, the story never felt like it was gonna be their relationship as the main relationship. Like I just, it was uninteresting to me. And yeah, it was sort of all about building someone who yes, is able of, is able to commit this like cruel act, but is someone that we understand why they're drawn to each other.

Like that duality was important to me, and I really needed them to have…a vibe. Like I needed them to have a creative energy, synergy, whatever, like they needed to get each other. Because he is only in two scenes before the bad thing happens in the film. And a lot has to be accomplished in those scenes.

We need to see Agnes's, like, lust for life, her, like, her energy and her excitement for the future. And we need to see why she would go to his house for notes, basically. And it's interesting because now that the film's out, like there's a lot of, people know what the film's about going into it, but we sort of built that character in a way that it is a surprise what happens. And we're just as surprised as she is, hopefully. 

And in, in a way I wanted him to be this sort of like, charming, bumbly, guy who got thrown into, he like had a huge book that did well and he is kind of like frazzled. And I used the main character from A Serious Man is sort of my, the vibe. Just like this guy who just can't get it right. You know, just kind of this guy you like. And he's, he's like handsome, but he's like, can't figure it out. There's like a comedy to him and me and Louis worked pretty hard on figuring out how to not undermine Agnes in those scenes by building him as someone charming, basically.

Meg: Yes, yes. But, and yet because we're, it's her emotional point of view of him, right? 

Eva: True. True. Exactly. 

Meg: That's what she sees in him. Right. That's why this is gonna happen. That's why he's gonna get lured. 

Eva: Totally.

Meg: We're not watching him and saying to her, watch out, watch out. 

Eva: Like totally. That would be so, it would be so cruel, to be like, it'd be so–

Meg: –and disrespectful to her as a character. So disrespectful. 

Eva: I totally agree. And that's the same, like the way I shot the house sequence where she's inside and then she emerges. Like, I did that for, I always, that's kind of why I made the film, was to not show it. And to pause it as to whether you can make a film with dramatic tension where this happens in it and not show it.

And like, do we have to see it to feel it? And that was sort of like a big need for me in making the film. So yeah. It was never written to, it's like Agnes goes inside, we wait, we wait, we wait. Agnes emerges with her boots and her thesis in her hand. Like it was always that. 

Meg: And then, and then she drives and drives and drives and drives.

Eva: Yes, she does drive. 

Meg: And I, it's, I will say, I hope you take this as a compliment. When she was driving, I started to get mad.

Eva: Mm.

Meg: And I was like, so uncomfortable. And I was like, let me in!

Eva: Yes. 

Meg: Let me in! 

Eva: No, we don't. 

Meg: And I got mad at you, Eva. I was like–

Eva: –-no worries. 

Meg: I was like why is she not letting us in? I got mad at the character. I got mad at you as the creator. 

Eva: Mm-hmm. 

Meg: And I was like, why are you not letting me in? Why are you not letting me in? And then all of a sudden I was like, this is what it feels like. She's shutting down. She's, it was so genius because you used film to create an emotional state in me, that then connected me to the character.

Eva: Thank you. 

Meg: You know, I also, it was so profound and I'll never forget it. Like I was literally so like, argh, and then I was like, oh, oh, oh. And I dunno, I thought it was genius. 

Eva: But then we give her your, we give you her face, then we give you to her. So, no, yeah. I do think–

Meg: –no, but she's shutting down. She's going, she's freezing. We've met a woman who's frozen now. Now we got this beautiful experience of her before the shutdown, and now we're literally experiencing it. I can feel her in the car…going away. 

Eva: Yeah. 

Meg: Like, she's, Ugh. 

Eva: Thank you. 

Meg: You know? 

Eva: Yeah I, I think also there was some part of me that also wanted her to have her privacy. Like, as the filmmaker of like this, is like we, you don't see her face because she needs her face to be private right now.

And you can only see her face when she's in the safety of this person who will take care of her. And, and I wanted her to have like. I wanted her to have, and that's the same reason I didn't go inside the house, is like, that’s so cruel. To force her to, for us to know something before she does. Like, we'll know it when she tells us, because that's how it works in the real world.

We don't get to be behind the closed doors. We hear people at their word and like the film wants you to believe the words. There's never a question as to whether this happens or not. So, that was a very like, deliberately sequenced thing. In every iteration of the story. 

Meg: Yeah. 

Eva: And it, thank you for saying that. That's so, I've never heard someone say it like that. And it, it's really, that's really meaningful. Thank you. 

Meg: And now that you tell me about the privacy, I can feel that too. That, this isn't for you, this is hers. And, you know, I also felt like, yeah, she'd like to be home too. She'd like this not to have happened too, but guess what it did? So you're gonna stay in this car with her, because that's what it is. That's what it feels like. It's just so brave and authentic and I loved it so, so much. I love it so much. 

Eva: God, I love this podcast. 

Meg: Okay. I wanna, but you also mentioned when you were talking about writing this, that you went to Maine.

Eva: Yes.

Meg: So talk to me about your writing process in general, or specifically on this film. You went to Maine. How long were you there? How much writing did you do there? 

Eva: Well, you know what, I was thinking about this because I feel like the thing I've been saying is not true. 

Meg: Okay. 

Eva: Which is, I've been saying, I went to Maine and I kind of blacked out and I kind of just dumped it all out.

But then I was thinking about it and I, I actually, before doing this, I like went into my deep closet where I put things I don't wanna look at ever again. And I, I went and I found my notebooks from the time I was in Maine and I was fucking, I was, I was doing my fucking shit. Like I was structure, I was, I was going through it, draft, draft, draft, like I was, and I think in my memory of it is, that, it was easy because it was in the past and now this is my life and everything's hard. 

But no, like, it was a real difficult thing. And I, I mean, I wrote like a scene from it and then spent a year away from it because I wanted to figure out how to come back to it. It felt like the kind of story that if I threw myself into it too quickly, it would be mad at me or it would, I would feel sad about how, like, I think I needed to just be gentle with it.

So, there was a lot of charting, like in looking at it. I, it took me a second, like to figure out the chapters. And once I figured out, oh, this is a film where there are little ghosts that appear in every chapter, and we don't know about the ghosts until we go through time with her, and then we are inside her mind and we see things that only she sees too. 

So, once I figured those things out, there was some real joy in like, okay, the boots by the door. Okay. Like the, you know, like the mouse or whatever, like, and things like that became the way I was going to contain it. And the chapters I felt were really helpful and kind of, I used them to trick myself into only having to write, like, 25 pages at a time.

Like, 'cause the idea of writing a feature about this, it felt like it could be anything. And I wanted it to feel contained, and small, and like, and I, and once I figured out the chat, it just, it was just about figuring out like parameters until I was safe enough to write inside of them. It was a lot of writing and being confused.

And I remember there's, like, this part where she says she wants to go light her professor's office on fire. And then she does not do that, and she goes home and says, ‘I was gonna do this thing.’ There was like a whole thing I wrote that she does, she does it. And then like, I came back to the next day and I was like, ‘of course she doesn't do that. No one does that. You just wanna do it for 20 seconds and then you go home and you're like, oh my God. Like I'm going crazy.’

And, and so it was constantly like checking in about what's true. But it was a real…at the time I was in a development deal with a studio and, it made me feel like I maybe couldn't write.

Like maybe I wrote, like, eight drafts from scratch for a story. And, every time I wasn't getting anything, for like any notes. It was like sending it into the void, and it was, like, really confusing. And I think I was really young, so I thought that that was about my writing versus the–

Meg: –versus the void.

Eva: Yeah. Versus the void. And, so I kind of use this as like, this is my rebellion. It's like, what do I want to write? What am I gonna write that seriously no one's asking me to write? And what do I have to lose? Like, I'm never gonna show this to anyone, I'm gonna show it to my best friend and like, my loved ones, maybe, if it feels right to do that. But like, what do I need to write?

And this became that. And it's funny 'cause, obviously, like I got to make this and that, you know, I got to say no to that later. So it's just, and everything is fun–

Meg: –and we all got to, we all got to know it and we're all so, so lucky. I also, I would say, especially for some of our emerging female writers, on the story, we talk on the show, we talk about lava. We talk about want. But I'm also like really big on want, and activating characters. 

And I love your character because, yes, we meet her shut down. It's after what's happened. It's after. And yet we meet her with a best friend that she wants. Like it's not, it's still there. It's not, it doesn't have to be this giant thing. Like, I want the job, I want the promotion, I want the whatever. 

Eva: Yes. 

Meg: And that is in the movie when it's appropriate, when we see her in the past and she does get this job and all of that, but she's a very strong character. You don't ever have a sense of her waiting to, for life to happen to her, right. She's still standing in herself.

And I think that friendship really created such a thing that she wants, right. That she needs that friendship. She wants that. 

Eva: So how do you do that? 

Meg: Like how did, how you did it? 

Eva: No. How you, no, but like, but every time it's really like, really hard to see how to do it. 

Meg: I know. 

Eva: Like, I just, I see that the film does that. Like, I do and I'm like, whoa, how did I do that? But honestly, like, I'm kind of like, it's a really confusing—

Meg: –but I think you lay the, I'm sorry, go ahead. 

Eva: No, I was just gonna say every time like it, you're like, well this is, this is, I'm starting from complete scratch. I'm a baby. I don't, I, it’s just, it's a real mind fuck.

Meg: It is such a mind fuck. Like what is writing? That's how I feel every time I start over. How did anybody ever do this? 

Eva: I know. 

Meg: 'Cause it's gonna take many, many drafts to even get to understand what the hell you're doing.

Eva: Yup. 

Meg: And, yeah. But if you love, you clearly love her. And she is an active character in her inactivity. She is walking downstairs when she hears something. She's not like, you know, you know she–

Eva: –right. But it's interesting 'cause it's like that can be like active, can be anything. 

Meg: Anything. 

Eva: And we, we often see. It takes, like, you kind of have to educate yourself in films for the one, or the, the action is really small in order to understand the nuance of what active can be.

Because sometimes you think, okay, so she needs to find a gun. Like, right. And it's like, well, what's the version of what, what would she actually do? Actually, she would go tell her friend that she is like, wants to kill him and then she would like, make soup. You know, like, or something like, but it's like, is that active? Yes. 

Meg: Yes, it is. 

Eva: So it's interesting to try to figure out what it's–

Meg: –yeah. And it's beautiful in this, this subtle way. And when we're running the studio movies, you know, I'm always wanna do subtle, and they're always like, ‘what's going on?’ I'm like, shit. Okay. 

Eva: That must be so hard. 

Meg: Yeah, subtlety and animation is not a thing.

Eva: Right. 

Meg: So okay, let's talk about directing. We have a lot of people who are directors who, listen, they're writer–directors, directors. 

Eva: Shout it out. You can do it.

Meg: Yeah, you can do it.

Eva: You can do it. You're the one, you know everything, you're the expert. So, if you wanna direct, you got it. If it's bubbling inside you to do it, that means you're supposed to do it.

Meg: God, I love that.

Eva: Or something.

Meg: Okay. Talk about visual inspiration for this film.

Eva: Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because, like, in learning the film, there's all these different, there's different ways to be inspired. So my initial, like, look book was three colors Blue, the double if of Veronique, like these, these tragedies.

And I showed it to my producers and they were like, ‘I don't know if we thought we were making that movie.’ And I was like, ‘no, this is what it feels like.’ And they were like, ‘okay.’ And then when you know, you go and ask producers to finance your film, it's like, okay, so I'm gonna show you images from Juno, and from Mean Girls, and like Stepbrothers, and Fargo.

And it's like, yeah, all of that is true and to some extent, but then there's sort of this like homecoming I think of like, okay, but I think there's. There are films that, visually, are my film more than those films. And those, I had to get those out to understand what I wanted. And, so for me, it became certain women.

It became Manchester by the Sea, it became the film Burning. And this film called Fat Girl, too, I thought was visually just, like, totally in line. And I actually discovered I like a real, a really simple, like, a film that feels like it has more of a delicate touch. And that's actually what I wanted to do with this film.

And what it took too was me drawing a lot to be like, well, why would I do that angle on her face? That's like, not what I mean. And, just, I had a lot of time because no one was gonna make the movie for a while.So I got the very stressful and frustrating time to, that was necessary, to understand exactly what I wanted to do.

And then, yeah, I think also books were very like, informative for me. There's this line in The Secret History where she, like, she writes, ‘they were like ants in a sugar bowl.’ And I kept thinking of that when I had this image in my head of them walking on snow. And it never snowed, obviously, for our shoot, but there was like, there were just things pulled.

Meg: I love it. 

Eva: And I think it takes a long time of pulling things and making like an emotional collage of things. 

Meg: Brining. Yeah. Brining. 

Eva: Totally. 

Meg: So you're on, so the movie's very intimate. It's in spaces, it's in rooms not all the time, like you said, we're outside with the walking through the snow, or the lack of snow. If you're gonna, what advice would you have on making an intimate movie feel more cinematic?

Eva: Hmm. I mean, I think it's like a question of what is your film about? And my film was about time and feeling stuck and love, I think for me. And so, it ended up making sense to me to repeat shots in a way that felt, you could feel time moving between them.

Like we have this wide of Lydie and Agnes brushing their teeth, the same wide we have when Agnes tells Lydie what happened to her. And we have the same wide when Gavin comes into the bathtub with Agnes. And, to me, that kind of visual vocabulary is very helpful because, it's like, this is a place with a lot of meaning.

And I was making a very small film, like there were 84 scenes we shot, I think, and 70 of them were in or around the cottage. So it was like, the cottage has to do a lot for us. 

Meg: Right. 

Eva: And we're in the same locations in order to show time passing and her stuckness. So, then how, so repeating shots that, that felt like echoes of other shots, or like, ghosts of other moments was thematically relevant to the film.

I think it's like, what is a scene about, and then, how can you make that, and and what is a scene about in the context of the whole film? Like, you know, Lydie and Agnes, when they're on their little trip together, they're in these like vast two shots together, 'cause they're getting along and it's romantic and it's just them in this big world. 

And then when Lydie brings, like, something to Agnes of like, I don't want you to die. We're in these sort of closeups, but they're choppy. Like we, they're not in the same shot anymore. And, and all that stuff comes from like, honestly, I think doing it and like practicing doing it and drawing it and watching films. And a really helpful exercise actually, I found was taking films I love and reverse shot listing them.

So I did this for Certain Women and I did this for Moonlight, which is like, take a screenshot of every shot. And then write out, like, what their shot list must have been for that day. And I think it will, especially for a film that feels like really a part of your film's DNA, I think it's a really helpful exercise to understand how someone's making choices.

And obviously it's not a complete shot list 'cause you never really know what happened. But I think it really helps to understand what choices people are making when they're shooting and in an edit and why, like how they, how they prioritize, like, where they put the camera around someone's face. It's just, I found that to be like, really helpful.

Meg: I love that. That's amazing. I'm gonna, I, you know, I'm gonna do that just as a writer actually, because you need to know what the director's drawing from. Okay. What is the biggest mistake that you've seen directors do with actors? Not because you were the director, but you've also been an actor.

Eva: Yes. 

Meg: So talk about directing actors.

Eva: I think the thing that's bothered me the most is when you think I can't handle having all the information. Because, I think there's this idea that actors are very…finicky, and like, you have to capture like lightning in a bottle and it's like, yes and no. Actors are incredibly smart.

They give you their soul and they give you many takes of different versions of their soul and then hand that footage to you and then you have to be trusted with that footage behind closed doors. And they don't often see the film until it comes out. So there's a huge, like, vulnerability that actors are bringing to you that you need.

And they know what, they've read the whole script many times and they know what happens at the end of the film. And they're acting like they don't, so they can hold tons of information at once and not, so I'm like, I'm, like, starting to, like, get mad. 

Meg: I love it. Okay. I love it. 

Eva: I'm just like, actors are incredibly smart and get, and if there's something going on, let them know because it can feel like– 

Meg: –Gimme an example when you say something going on, gimme an example. Do you have an example?

Eva: Like if, like if there's a reason why we're not, like we're stopping shooting and we're going, you know, we're like, we're taking an hour to figure something out, like, go tell them what it is. And if it's, and it's okay if it's like the light or something, you know, it's just like, go talk to them and–

Meg: –keep them in the loop.

Eva: Yes. And that's like a small example. Others are like, I've been on sets where like a director hasn't introduced themselves to me and I have to like, go do. And I'm just like, ‘man, I am giving you my whole thing and, like, talk like I am an artist and you have to believe that I know enough about this character.’

Like I am the expert on this character even though you are the expert on the film. And so use me, use me as a smart brain too. Yeah.

Meg: I love that. Oh my God. Such great advice. Something honestly I would've never have thought of, so I just so, so insightful. Okay. We only have you for four more minutes, so– 

Eva: –Oh my God, this is so unfair.I can go forever. 

Meg: I'm gonna you to come back. I'm gonna beg you to come back.

Eva: –I would love to– 

Meg: –and talk to us some more. But, we always ask the last three questions of everybody. 

So, what brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing and or directing?

Eva: Hmm. That feeling when your characters are doing what they're doing and you're just documenting it.

Like that feeling that they are, that you love, like, you're like in a love affair with them. And you, you wanna watch them do things. And that, that feeling of like, you're at work, maybe doing, like, a different job and you have to get home to them at night because you miss them. And it's like you're a little, like, lover or something.

And that feeling that you're addicted to figuring something out. And the reverse of that is horrifying, but– 

Meg: Okay. So what pisses you off about writing? And or directing? 

Eva: Yes, I really, it hits me really hard when something doesn't work. I, and I, it takes, there's a lot of grief for me in, in and not something, and then letting, like, if a thing I think could work, doesn't work, that's devastating to me. 

And getting notes is hard and, so much of it is so painful. And it's a really, you know, like as a director, you're the only one there as a director. So you don't get to meet other directors very often unless you find a way to forge those kinds of relationships.

And there's a loneliness to that. And I think as a writer, there's a loneliness too. And, and it's really, I think sometimes I feel very protective of my work. But then again, like when I share it, I get so much helpful feedback, with the right people, of course. So I'm just mumbling, rambling, everything. 

Meg: No no, it's, I feel like you're, you're looking into my soul. I'm the same. I really have a hard time when it doesn't work. 

Eva: Yeah. 

Meg: And it's kind of what's happening right now. 'cause I'm like, it still doesn't work. What? And they're like, no, no, it works. It could be better. And I'm like– 

Eva: –but you know, it's like sometimes I'm like, well, what's, what's the simplest thing? But then I'm like, what? But sometimes I, ugh, I can't even talk about it.

Meg: No, I know. It's, it's actually triggering us. Okay. 

Eva: Yeah, we're upset. 

Meg: If you could have a coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give? 

Eva: Yes. I love this question. No, this is my answer that I recently discovered is my answer.

No one's going to come save you. Like you are, the pain you are experiencing is because you think someone's gonna come pick you up, call you special, and put you in something that's amazing. Do something amazing, and tell you all the things you wanna hear. And that call might  come for some people, and it might, it's never coming for you.

Like, that's my advice to myself of like, I, you are, you have to make the call to yourself. 

Meg: Mm-hmm. 

Eva: And you have what you need to, you have what you need to do the things you wanna do. Like why, why be in pain over other people not seeing something? I mean, it's inevitable. Of course, you'll be in pain in many ways, but, like, you can do a job before someone hires you to do it.

Like you can, you can prepare as a director before you get financing for a film before someone says yes. You can direct, you can prepare a role in a play you love without anyone hiring you to do the role. Like it's devastating in a lot of ways, but you can do that work and that work is the work that you would do.

So, there are ways to create without permission to create. And once you figure that out, you'll be in less pain. You'll be in different kinds of pain, but it'll be not the pain of waiting or, or feeling victimized by the world.

Meg: Well, I want a t-shirt now that says make the call to yourself, because I actually think that is so profound. And for writers, too, because when you're getting notes, you can get so kind of spun around about, well, what am I doing? And this must suck and you don't like it, and does it really not work? And I like it. And you kind of, and it's like, I just need to breathe. 

Eva: Yeah. 

Meg: And make the call to myself. Okay, Meg, get real with yourself. You know what I mean? It's just like you gotta come back to yourself. 

Eva: I know. And the amazing thing about being a writer is that no matter what you write, you can print it out and it's a stack of paper. Like other jobs don't have that, like–

Meg: –right– 

Eva: We get to hold what we wrote and that's, that is from heaven. That we made something out of nothing. And that's why when like, I. Everyone's like, oh, the reviews are coming out. I'm like, fuck that. Like fuck that. I made something out of nothing, and that is crazy. And so give it up for like that idea that this didn't exist. Now it exists. Like that's a lot. 

Meg: That's how I feel when people are insulting someone's movie. I'm like, you know, that means you didn't make anything because–

Eva: –totally–

Meg: –you wouldn't understand. They got it made. Yes, maybe it's not great, or, but they did it. They manifested something.

Eva: And like, what works for you about it? That's a far more interesting, that's what me and my best friend always say is like, well, what works for you about this? And why doesn't it not work for you is so much more interesting than like, I don't like it. Like, it's so boring. Like start to understand yourself through it. So I'm sweating so much you guys. 

Meg: I could talk to you for like five hours.

Eva: Yeah, me too. I like, next time. 

Meg: Thank you so, so much, Eva. 

Eva: Thank you. It was such a dream come true. Seriously, thank you for having me.

Meg: Thanks so much to Eva for joining us today. For more support, check out our Facebook group and our workshop site where we are answering questions and we're hearing your stories to try to help you more directly.

And remember, you are not alone, and keep writing.