I love sports. When I'm not playing, I'm watching, reading, or otherwise obsessing about them. This probably stems from growing up in Indiana, where if you didn't at least attempt to play basketball, you were considered of dubious moral character.

My first inkling that I might have a yen for directing came when I realized I enjoyed creating plays for my various sports teams more than I actually liked playing the game.

Particularly in these high school-set movies, there's something about being in high school that's like a cauldron, a boiling pot of emotion and joy and heartbreak that you feel so intensely. Because you don't have any awareness yet, you don't realize that it's a finite time and feeling.

I can tell you that from the director's chair, young actors love to be challenged, to be given killer lines that take time to wrap their mind around.