After working with so many great actors and acting students in film school, it was a whole other thing working with Luke [Kirby].

Imagine having love for someone and being told, "You're not allowed to experience that love because you're not allowed to experience pain." It's a dilemma that so many people with bipolar can't reconcile. They can't find a way out of it. The truth is that you can have both.

Emotions are what drives everyone. You get up in the morning and go do something because the emotion drives you to it.

The patient needs to believe that they can keep the fire while being medicated. The doctors must tell them, "I understand that you experienced something beautiful. I understand that you saw the stars pulsing spirals of fire across the sky like Van Gogh did when he was looking outside the sanitarium window. But you know what? He didn't paint ['Starry Night'] when he was manic. He painted it when he was sane because he didn't need the mania to have the magic."

After working with so many great actors and acting students in film school, it was a whole other thing working with Luke [Kirby].

Fellini was [David] Lynch's master and his biggest idol, and he believed in Fellini's view that film is a dream, it's not reality. It's all about delving into the unconscious.

Vincent van Gogh was sane when he painted that piece of art, because when you you feel the mania and depression, you have all the heaven and hell your heart has ever experienced that you can tap into, to be able to create something that can last several lifetimes.