Nia DaCosta

And then I got into film, and I thought I wanted to be an actor.

I was like, oh, I mean, they're the ones you're seeing.

They're the ones who you're empathizing with and feeling through.

And then my mom said, no, you're too sensitive.

I think, yeah, she said, you're too sensitive, babe.

The way you want, the way you talk about

this the way you talk about film and and the way you are i think you want to be a director i don't know what she was saying i was a tyrant but um i but i was like oh yeah i think my mom's right but now i have this word director and then i can ask myself what is a director what does that mean and that sent me down the rabbit hole and you know i remember being at nyu and i would i'd have like okay coen brothers let's go and i'd go to the fisher center at bopes and watch all of

The Coen Brothers films.

And then I'd go, okay, Ang Lee.

I'd watch all of Ang Lee's films and just go down the filmography.

And that started because my mom identified for me, oh, I think it's director.

I think that's you.

Yeah.

I mean, I was a production office PA.

And so a lot of my time, which was good because I would write my scripts at my desk.

Oh, and you're doing your time.

Yeah, you know.

But when I got to go to set, it was really awesome to watch people

them run the set and and they're all very different people and and but what i learned was everything comes from the top because even in the production office you feel the difference because of how the director is running the set you know when i was working on the nick which is the steven soderbergh tv show i think a pa got yelled at by someone and the production manager said whoa whoa who yelled at you we don't do that here and she went and talked to the person like i

And that's the Soderbergh thing.