Mary Stuart Masterson Talks About Directing Her First Film

Today on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show guest host Kerry Nolan talked with actress Mary Stuart Masterson about her directorial debut The Cake Eaters, which opens today in limited release.

The film is about two interconnected families living in a small town and stars Twilight‘s Kristen Stewart as terminally ill teenage girl who wants to lose her virginity before it’s too late.

In the interview below, Masterson says that as an actress directing for the first time, she tried not to tell her actors how she would play a scene. “If I tell everybody, ‘this is how I see it’ I might be limiting the entire creative process to my imagination and not the sum of all our imaginations,” says Masterson. Nolan comments that it’s a generous attitude for a director, but Masterson replies, “It’s selfish. They bring me presents and I take credit.” [NPR]