One of the reasons I love movies and TV shows and thinking about how they’re made — the immense care and craft that goes into them — is I spent so much of my life with others telling me how my story would go. What my limitations were and how I deserved nothing because I was weak and terrible. That’s the tale they had me signed up for against my wishes.

I like seeing how you can take control of the narrative, seize the diegesis and shape it to your own will. All the world’s a stage and all that. It’s a cliché but it’s also true.

Movies and TV shows taught me how I could direct my own story. And I did just that.