I mean, you always hope to have a part on every level, on every layer. For us it was very much a conversation about power and sexuality and brutality. And really all the issues that are in that world, in that space, come down to one word, which is "masculinity.

What is reflected in the way this behavior is happening - in the way that minorities are treated, and the way that the incarceration system works, and the way that even the police are treated, and the way they're paid, and the way they're trained, and the whole educational system.

So the only problem that you have is actually switch things in the department, changing things, controlling things, putting it maybe under federal supervision, and if you fix the department, you'll fix the problems - with police corruption, with brutality, with evidence tampering, all those things.

I think that almost every scene was an exploration - it was never going to be just what’s on the page. So I know I was very lucky - we all were - to work with a cast of this caliber. These are extremely experienced and intelligent actors, who are also deeply emotional and - as you say - are also engaged in the world.

But the reality is that the police serve a certain function, to maintain a certain status quo, and that's one of the things that the movie is about, because it basically gives you three options for looking at the police, as symbolized by Dave Brown.

I think the most emotional part in making the movie and discovering the movie - because it was a process of discovering - is all the scenes with the family.

I'm looking into a different actor's eyes every couple days, and I'm learning so much just to see the different processes people go through, and how their acting works for them.