It can be said that like her passion project, Tallulah, Sian Heder’s path to writing was equally meandering. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon where she studied theatre, worked as an actress in New York and L.A. for some time before she was accepted into the Directing Workshop for Women at AFI. There, she made a short film called Mother, which ended up going to Cannes in 2005 and winning an award.

“The movie opened a lot of doors for me,” says Heder of her experience with Mother. “That’s how I got my agent. Then I started going out in the world as a writer.” Though she eventually landed her first writing gig for the TV series, Men of a Certain Age, her writing career wasn’t instant.

“After Cannes, I went back to bartending at the Standard, and I remember thinking, as I was shaking Apple martinis, ‘I just won Cannes! I just won Cannes! What am I doing here?” [Laughs] So I think it took a long time for financial success to catch up with other kinds of success, but that movie definitely put me on a path that led to doors being opened for me as a writer and a director.”

Sian Heder on set of Tallulah

Ten years later, Mother is the genesis for Tallulah. The film stars Ellen Page as the titled character, a homeless woman living by her own set of rules, who kidnaps the child of a wealthy and inattentive mother named Carolyn (Tammy Blanchard). Tallulah, subsequently, seeks out the help of her ex’s mother, Margot (Allison Janney), which includes lying about the toddler’s parentage.

Tallulah has done well on the festival circuit, including at Sundance. It premieres July 29 on Netflix, where Sian is also a writer for the acclaimed series Orange is the New Black.

Creative Screenwriting spoke to Heder about creating fully formed characters, juggling distinct POVs, and what it’s like to direct from her own script.

Amanda Stephen as Alison Abdullahin and Adrienne C. Moore as Cindy Hayes in Orange is the New Black. Photo by K C Bailey/Netflix – © 2016 Netflix

What inspired the story for Tallulah?

A couple of different things. I had a friend who was living a very off-the-grid, anarchistic existence. I found her living in her van in New York and forced her to live with me. I spent these two weeks with her and she kind of turned my life upside down in the best possible way, and I was interested in her as a character, so I started writing these character sketches of her, like little essays or journal-type entries about this character. I didn’t know what to do with her, but I knew that she interested me.

And then when I moved out to London, I worked as a nanny as this high-end hotel, and I had this very weird encounter with a woman who had a toddler and had no interest in being a mom. I mulled over taking her child, but I didn’t. But I knew my friend would have because she didn’t live by the “normal” rules most of us live by. So it was almost like this plot had arisen, and it was the perfect vehicle to use this character.

Tallulah is such a three-dimensional, fully developed character. What’s your process like when creating characters? Are they already pretty well formed before you start writing, or do you get to know them through writing?

There are different ways, and I think it depends on the project. Sometimes I launch in and will start writing dialogue not knowing who the person is, and then will start discovering details that I can use for that character. But then sometimes you can get stuck using that.

I tried that process for a new script that I am working on for Lionsgate. I wrote an outline and launched into the dialogue, and I found that it was hard to write. I didn’t know who these characters were and what their voices sounded like. So I went back and wrote free-form character bios where I wrote from the place of that character and about details of their lives so I could get to know them and figure out who they were in order to make writing those scenes easier.

So, I come at it a couple of different ways. Sometimes characters come from out of necessity. On Orange is The New Black, I’ll go to write a scene and will think, “God, I really need a person for Piper to talk to, so let me just create a character so she can have someone to talk to because all the other characters are busy right now.” And then that new person can become a character on the show.

Ellen Page as Tallulah in Tallulah

So Tallulah came from your short film Mother. How was the writing process adapting a short film into a feature-length?

I was very interested in the characters from the short film, but they were also all archetypes. They were one thing. I was interested in writing the feature by subverting a lot of our initial impressions.

So the audience has an idea or impression of who they are, but how I can flip that on its head? Like dramatic turns that were unexpected, or revelations that we didn’t see coming or moments of empathy for people we started out hating, and so that’s what drew me to write the feature.

I definitely think that when I wrote the first draft of Tallulah, I was not skilled a writer as I am now. I didn’t have the technique of how to outline. I didn’t know what structure was. I followed the story in a much more organic, fluid way.

In a way, I find writing a bit more challenging and less free now because I know better now. I think it was coming from a more pure place then, like what interested me story wise as opposed to having Save the Cat in your head. Like, when to have your inciting incident, for example, and sometimes those things feel stifling.

So what do you do then when it becomes stifling? Because I think a lot of writers want that fluidity, that pure creativity, but then they know they have to write within parameters, which can be tricky.

I’m a big fan of rewriting. I take notes. I listen to people’s notes.

So many writers receive notes and listen to them, but when they sit down to their computer, they say, “Oh god, but I love that scene. If I take that note then it will just unravel this whole first act.” But maybe it does need to unravel. Maybe the first act needs to disappear and start with the second act.

So I think those things are scary because you think you’re brilliant and limited. You think, “If I throw out this idea, will there be another good idea?” One of the lessons that I’ve learned by being in writer’s rooms is that there is always another idea. By making a radical change, you can unearth a much better story.

You don’t take everyone’s notes because everyone is opinionated and you want to tell the story you want to tell, but I think when a note rings true or when many people give you the same note, then I am all for accommodation.

When you get stuck, I think shaking up the kind of writing helps too. When I’m in Final Draft and working on a scene, and it’s just not clicking or working, I’ll open up a Word document or a journal with a pen, and write a journal entry from that character’s perspective to just get into a different head space and think differently.

Allison Janney as Margo in Tallulah

There are apparent themes in the script – motherhood, disconnected people connecting — was that deliberate from the onset, or did those themes come up as you worked and explored the script?

You know, the movie took a long time to get made and I wrote many drafts, and I grew up and evolved as a person throughout the process. And a lot of things changed, like, there aren’t many payphones anymore in New York, and there’s one that exists in the subway, so that’s the one I needed to use. These are the kinds of things I needed to rework in my drafts because it took a while for the movie to get made.

But one of the great things about that is I became a mother myself and I felt a lot more compassion for the mother character than the villain I had originally created. She was broken and deserved a lot more love and empathy. In retrospect, it’s a good thing that the film took as a long as it did because I got to tell a lot more complex and nuanced story than I would have from that initial place.

The three women in the script – Tallulah, Margot, Carolyn – are very different and each of them act from their own distinctive moral compasses, whatever that may be. How challenging is it to juggle those different characters and remain fair to each of their stories?

When I am writing sometimes, I will pull out one character’s arc because you’re in the script and sometimes it’s difficult to see Carolyn and the journey she’s taking since she’s so enmeshed in these other scenes.

So with all the Carolyn scenes, I worked on it as if it were its own movie so her arc is very clear, and so she’s separate from the other characters. That was part of my process, but also I think my training as an actor has helped my writing because I’m able to get inside the head of my characters.

If I were to play this part, where do I find the humanity of this person? Even bad people don’t think they’re bad people. Everyone thinks they’re acting from their own kind of righteousness. So being able to empathize with a villain is important.

Tammy Blanchard as Carolyn in Tallulah

What’s it like to direct from your own script? Are you constantly rewriting? Did you stick to the script as much as possible?

I would say that movie is mostly close to the script, but working as writer on Orange is the New Black where you’re rewriting in the moment when something isn’t working gave me a skill set that was really helpful on my own movie. There are moments when you’re directing and you’re like, “Who wrote this shit? This writer is insane.”

I’m not really precious about my writing. The script to me is a blueprint for the movie, and if you’re in the process of building the building and something in the blueprint doesn’t make sense, then you change that thing.

There were definitely moments when a scene wasn’t working and I would talk to the actors about what was working. Then there would be instances with the baby where in the script, it says, “The baby bursts into tears,” and then you’re in the moment and you think, “Wait. How did I think that was going to happen?”

So a lot of times you have to be improvisational. You need to do the work so you know what’s at the heart of each scene. So if you don’t get exactly what you wrote, you get the essence of what the scene is supposed to be about in another way.

Ellen Page as Tallulah in Tallulah

You mentioned you’re in the middle of writing another script. What do you start with when crafting a script – character, themes, or something else? Does it vary from script to script?

It varies. In this case, it’s a remake of a French film, which I’ve never done before, so it’s certainly different. Often it starts with a character for me because I think those are the stories that interest me the most when there is a compelling character at the center of it.

I’m not a writer who comes from a genre place, like, “I’m going to write a horror movie now!” Sometimes it comes from an interesting world, or sometimes it comes from a small moment that can make a strong story.

A lot of times it’s also very personal, like what I’m going through at that particular time in my life and what interests me, and that changes. For instance, my husband and I were engaged for three years, and we kept on going to all of these weddings, so I wrote a movie about it because it was so absurd.

In a way you lose interest in that movie because you’ve moved on and it’s not as fascinating to you anymore compared to when you first sat down to write it. So a lot of it is where I’m personally at in the moment.

Tammy Blanchard as Carolyn in Tallulah

What’s next for you? Do you want to direct more scripts? Write more? Both?

It’s both. I definitely have the directing bug. I am a filmmaker and I love it, so I am interested in directing more. I am directing a couple of episodes for TV, and I am also developing. There are TV ideas and feature ideas. I am not a person who’s great at having six projects going. I like having one story that consumes my world and be everything.

It’s also hard to write right now because I have a two year old and an eight-month-old, so I’ve learned that I have to get far away from my house to work. [Laughs] I have to be a much more disciplined writer and disciplined with my time than I was before.

I used to spend all day in coffee shops and go for a walk and write more. Now I have a two-hour window and I have to use that because that’s all I have right now, so it’s forcing me to be much more organized person.

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