“My motivation has never been to break into the business. Maybe that has allowed me to ignore a lot of the things. There’re a lot of people who like to tell you specific things that you need to do in order to make it in this industry. I was at the stage where I was trying a lot of those things and it was debilitating artistically because my natural personality didn’t really go along with that go get them mentality.

For me, personally, when I started to take the pressure off and was like if I can find a job that I can pay my rent with and I can make movies on the side for a hobby for the rest of my life I’ll be extremely happy. Once I told myself that I started writing things and chasing stories that I would tell, whether or not I would get paid for it, it was, for me, one of the best things I could have done.

I don’t know about for other people who want to break into Hollywood or whatever, maybe that wouldn’t be the best way to go, but for me personally it was the best thing for me. It took a lot of pressure off and it allowed me to create more honest art.”

                                  –Destin Daniel Cretton, writer/ director Short Term 12

*Quote is from a great interview with Cretton from Scott Myers’ blog, Go Into The Story.