I have to try to watch myself and give myself feedback. People would take for granted that I was ready to go right away. And I would say, "No, no, no, no, I actually have to go talk to myself." Because I need to just take a minute to think about what just happened and tell myself what to do in the next take, so just give me two minutes to go be a director.

When it comes to identity, that was an issue that plagued me for a lot of my life. It's something that I wanted to tap into. Film can really take you to other places, and sometimes that's necessary to understand your own identity or someone else's identity or just the issue of identity, in general. It takes you. It's borderless. It's boundless. It's universal.

On the American side, some of the movies that I watched when I was a kid, like E.T. or The Wizard of Oz, those are films that changed my point of view of what film could be, of what you could do. Those are the ones that I remember were incredible when I was younger.

I watch everything from independent art-house cinema to foreign film. I don't watch as many Hollywood blockbusters but once in a while, I'm curious. I like to see what's out there.

I was really inspired by my own experience, and specifically my own identity crisis but larger than that, I also wanted to explore the trend of reverse immigration, of the immigrant returning home after being in a host country or an adopted home for 20 years, and finding themselves at various levels of discord with the home culture. I wanted to explore people building lives across multiple geographies. I think that's, something that we're experiencing more and more as travel becomes easier, as people are traveling more for work. People can work from anywhere.

I definitely did not play myself. As the writer of the script, I have traits of all the characters. I can relate to all of the characters.

When there's an actor involved, the actor's talking to the director or the director's talking to the actor. But when there are not those two people interacting, it's all one person in your own mind, you have to be so extra-clear about what you need.