Every year filmmakers go to Sundance to break out. However, only one film wins the Grand Jury Prize and that film goes on to win a number of accolades and praise by critics. This year "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" won the coveted Grand Jury at Sundance and became the third film in a row to also take home the Audience Award. The film was directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, an Emmy nominee for his work on "American Horror Story" and director of a horror movie "The Town That Dreaded Sundown."

Gomez-Rejon spoke to Latin Post about the process of making "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," his Sundance experience and how his work with Martin Scorese and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has influenced him.

Francisco Salazar: Can you tell me about your Sundance experience and what it felt like to win the Grand Jury Prize?

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon: The whole Sundance experience was exactly how your dream plays out. This is what you dream as a kid and a teenager. You dream about directing a movie and your set always looks like "Gone with the Wind." It's massive and you always think of Sundance or Cannes.

Those are the two big dreams in reference to festivals. And it was unexpected. I had never been to Sundance or a festival like that and we were working up until the very end. And at the very end we were so exhausted and so sick and all of sudden it gets that kind of reception and that was magical. And the rest of the week at Sundance played out beautifully because you are part of a movement and part of other directors trying to get their voice heard, and then it ends on those awards, which was completely unexpected.

FS: Can you tell me when you were approached to do the film?

AGR: I actually approached them. I read the script and loved it and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. When I called my friend Jeff Sommerville, who went to NYU with me, it was a surprise to him that I had read the script because they realized the script had been leaked. They had a process that they wanted to go through and other directors they wanted to go to. So he gave me a piece of advice, which was to put together a visual presentation. And I did and I waited for months to take all these meetings. And I know they were narrowing it down to some formidable directors and I finally got in.

FS: Before you started filming did you get chance to work with screenwriter Jesse Andrews?

AGR: Yeah, Once I get the script, then it was about the script being too fat, too expensive and we had to reduce it and trim it. We had to personalize some sequences and the ending changed a bit. But we very much in agreement about what the film was going to be and the shape of it.

FS: Can you tell me about the casting? Did you have anyone in mind when you started the process?

AGR: Someone who was accessible and real. I didn't really want to stunt cast it or anything. I just wanted it to be accessible. I was after naturalism and realism.

FS: Which role did you find the hardest to cast when you were doing auditions?

AGR: Greg's [role] because I was trusting him with so much of my emotional journey. Olivia [Cooke] was the first to be cast and there were different interpretations of Greg and finding the right Greg with the genuine approach to the role that had the right chemistry with Olivia.

But Earl was also hard, and he may have been the hardest. I could not find Earl and the film almost fell apart. I couldn't find the right Earl that was in the same film with Thomas [Mann] and Olivia and that also had his own distinct personality. It was very very tricky because he had some very difficult scenes and at the very last minute, before our movie almost fell apart, we found RJ [Cyler].

FS: The film has a lot of light touches for a movie about cancer. How do you balance the comic touches with a topic so serious such as cancer?

AGR: You hope that you're right more than you're wrong in directing it. I knew that the cast was right, natural and had a nice chemistry on and off the set. I knew that I did not mess that up. But you're scared all the time.

So you trust your gut and you move on when it feels you got something that was real and you continue to play with it in editing. For example, if you hold on Olivia's close-up for too long, you might suggest a love story and so you have to find the right rhythm. We were playing with compositions and I had to keep quite playful at the beginning so that I could earn those longer shots later and you know the audience was with you. But music, sound design and everything, a lot of thought went into it so we didn't underline the emotion and we let it be.

FS: In the film you have one scene that is shot in one long take. Can you tell me how long it took you to shoot and how many takes did you do?

AGR: We did four takes and that is the fourth. We were supposed to shoot it the night before but Olivia and Thomas were exhausted because we built that bedroom setup in the gymnasium of the high school. We built it modeled after the attic bedroom in the red house that we used. So we had three days for all those heavy scenes in the bedroom. It's a lot, especially for Olivia to go there over and over again. So we said, 'Okay, so we won't shoot tonight.' And of course part of me is like 'These days are so hard. Now you just added a five minute scene for the next day. How are we going to get to it.'

So we figured it out. And we just talked about and we thought 'maybe you walk in, you lay on the bed. That will be different from every other scene we had in this room. And you can be here looking away and listening to music and focused on something else that's not him.' And we talked about it and setup the camera, lit it and came in the next day and shot it.

It was the fastest thing we ever did. They came in prepared, they knew where they were going, the camera was in position and we just shot it. Little adjustments were made and that was it. I thought I was going to do more coverage but after the fourth take I just said, "that's it."

FS: Would you say that was the toughest scene?

AGR: No. The toughest scene to do was probably the hospital scene because I had story-boarded it carefully. And then I realized it didn't work and that those designs did not apply to what I was seeing in front of me. Now that we had a real rehearsal, a real nurse, a real doctor and we were playing the final short that was shot that same morning, it was something else that I had imagined in pre-production. So it changed the whole plan.

FS: How much rehearsal time did you have with the actors?

AGR: It depends on what you consider rehearsal. Because Thomas and Olivia were auditioning for this part for so long and because the movie fell apart and then came back together, they had been rehearsing with me. We were discovering things about the text, so by the time we started shooting we had rehearsed the scenes so much that we never rehearsed them again. We just talked about characters.

All the things that happen behind and before we were in the room. Thomas and RJ did a little more rehearsal just to make sure that their chemistry was right and that the text was solid. But it was very informal rehearsals.

FS: In the film you reference a number of movies in home movies that Earl and Greg make. Were those films handpicked by you?

AGR: Usually by and large it was a list of the filmmakers that I wanted. But there were some exceptions as some were scripted and some other people had ideas about it. But these were the films that I wanted to reference and these were the directors I wanted to pay hommage to.

FS: You've worked with Martin Scorsese, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and number of great directors. How have they inspired you throughout the process?

AGR: You have so much inside of you and you soak up so much as you watch them and learn from them. You can't copy their technique because you have your own way of seeing the world. But they set the bar high because they are the best at what they do and you're watching them at work. It's fascinating to see their creative process and you hope that one day you can make something as honest as they are making.

FS: What do you hope the audience takes away from this film?

AGR: That it's comforting and that creativity can heal. That maybe depending on where you are in your life, there is something comforting. That they discover some of the movies that we reference and they can keep some of those filmmakers alive by seeing their films. But it's about love, not the romantic love but the deep connections.

FS: Coming from a Latin American background, would you like to explore your Latino heritage?

AGR: Yeah, I do. There is certainly one I want to take on. Hopefully one or two years from now that takes place on the border. So there are some very specific stories I want to tell. There is also a movie I want to make that has some Latin American context.

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