On following your own path:
I was recently living in South Korea and took myself on a short vacation to Jeju Island, known for its history of elderly female free divers. I was planning to do some scuba diving but, last minute, there ended up being a massive monsoon storm and the weather became temperamental and angry, and shot down heavy rain all hours of the day. But because I was alone and didn’t need to keep dry around company, I decided I’d join the weather and explore in the rain anyways. This was not nodded upon by the locals and an ajumma (Korean grandmother figure) called me over and gave me a stern but playful slap on the back for walking soaked in the rain. She pointed me to her favourite fish restaurant and sent me off with a sassy motherly smile, and I ended up having the best fish of my life!
On family:
When I was 11 years old, my parents moved me and my little sister (6 at the time) into an RV, and we drove across the United States for a whole year while being homeschooled and filming our first independent film together. My mother was an actress already, but together we all learned to run the camera, the sound, the acting, and we directed each other, along with my dad making the music for our films. He was a punk rock musician before we started making the movies. Then it just became a family tradition and eventually our production company, Wonder Wheel Productions. We’ve continued making films together for the last 14 years, still splitting up the roles among the four of us, and hiring friends and people from our tiny local town to usually play their quirky selves. Though there’s a lot of waiting under clouds for flat light and rain to finish, there’s also a lot of bonding. It’s been a really great shared experience for my sister and I.
