Continue Interview: Nadine Crocker on Making Powerful Mental Health Drama

ComingSoon.net Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Continue director and star Nadine Crocker about the mental health drama, which is out today in theaters, on demand, and digital. She spoke about the personal nature of the film, its release, the impact of festivals, and more.

“Convinced she’s fated to walk the same troubled path as her father, Dean (Crocker) suffers a major mental health episode and is committed to a rehabilitation facility. Once confined, Dean shudders through the agonies of recovery, and bravely comes out the other side armed with a defense against the darkness, summed up in one word: Continue,” says the synopsis.

Tyler Treese: I know Desperation Road was filmed second, but it got a wide release first. So how was it revisiting Continue after you had moved on creatively? Because this is a very heavy film to be going all over again.

Nadine Crocker: I don’t feel like enough people have asked me that, that I like, haven’t even thought about. It was a very weird feeling to leave it behind, go to an entirely different world, and come into it. I will say, the first time watching it, because we did a whole festival circuit. So I went and made Desperation Road, and then we came back and did more festivals, and going back and watching it, I think, for the first time, was jarring. It really was like, oh, okay, I forgot this world. I forgot some of the moments, and there were definitely moments that made me laugh again, and there were moments that made me cry again.

After you’re a filmmaker, and you make and you watch a movie 3,033 times, you don’t know that it can still emotionally rock you in the way that it did. After taking a break and going to a new world and then coming back and revisiting it, it was definitely an interesting feeling. Then once it was back on it, it felt like home again. I remembered everything I loved about the film. But yeah, it was definitely an interesting feeling, revisiting it after being gone for some time.

You spoke about the festival circuit. I wanted to ask about that because there are elements of this film that really spoke to me personally, and I assume it has evoked a very personal response from some of the viewers as well.

I will say that the festival circuit and that entire experience was like something I’ll keep with me for all of my life. It was Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen, my two EPs, they’re also two of my best friends. The first time they came to a screening, um, they had never seen it with another audience, so they didn’t realize how much it emotionally affects you. When you are also in a room, and you feel that entire energy, you hear the laughter that comes in some of the moments and the crying and the emotion that comes with some of the other harder moments. After every festival screening, it always looks the same, which is there’s like a long line of people who are oftentimes in tears waiting to speak to me. As they approach, they’re really just telling me their struggles, their life, the people they’ve lost, or of their darkest day when they almost made the same choice.

The feeling of knowing that I made a film that made a stranger tell another stranger their most deepest, painful memories or things that they’ve gone through, it’s the most rewarding feeling. Because it’s exactly why I made this film was to start a conversation was to try and get people to talk about mental health. So truthfully, it was like witnessing your dreams coming true in the sense. Not only was I starting a conversation, but now, all of a sudden, the girl who felt like she was alone most of her life is surrounded by human beings who feel exactly the same way or have their own journeys. It’s kind of like the first time I ever went to an AA meeting because I’m nine years sober, and you realize you have an entire community, you know?

So yeah, the festival circuit was insane, but also I hit so much adversity in making this film. So many people told me that no one wanted to talk about mental health and suicide. So it was really a fight, and then all of a sudden to feel that reception and to know that, like I always knew my audience was there, but to actually witness it and then to like be given awards or things like that, like that was something I didn’t know would ever be possible for me. It was such a nod from the universe. I was really proud of myself for sticking to my guns because a lot of people told me that I was wrong, and I just like knew I wasn’t. I just knew in my heart I had to do this because I could make a difference, even if it was just in one person’s life, then it’s all worth it.

Thank you for sharing that. You talking about opening up, it reminded me of a scene of the film and they weren’t strangers, but there’s this wonderful scene where your character opens up to Shiloh [Fernandez]’s character, and they’re talking about the traumas that they both had. I really liked that scene. It’s very dialogue-driven, but I was also transfixed watching both of your performances and how you were reacting to each other opening their hearts. Can you just speak to that scene because there’s so much to unpack narratively? I thought it was just a wonderful sequence.

That’s one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie. It’s like one of those scenes too that you have to fight for. Because so many people are like, no one wants to see people talk. I’m like, “How do you get to know people if you don’t talk? It’s literally what we’re sitting doing right now, getting to know each other.” I think Hollywood can be a little bit afraid of dialogue and long dialogue scenes. So, for me, it’s the scene I fought for very hard, and it’s one of my favorite scenes.

But it’s also a moment from my life, which is interesting is that it is with Shiloh, a love interest in the movie, but a lot of that conversation was actually a conversation. It’s two parts, it’s two different memories of my life. One was when I played the honesty game with someone in my life, and we just told each other everything. It was such an invigorating feeling to be like, “Oh, you think that’s good? Let me tell you something.” It was just so freeing. But the part that is really the truth in that scene and the things that I’m saying came from a moment with my mother trying to explain to her how a girl like me could feel suicidal ideation and wanna end my life. That’s that moment where I broke it down to her the same way because I used to have an eating disorder. I am sober.

So funny enough, all the things I mentioned, I can talk about it personally because I have suffered with those things, but I knew my mother had her own struggles with an eating disorder when she was young. So I broke it down just very clearly. An alcoholic is always gonna think about having a drink. A girl with bulimia is always gonna think about going to the bathroom after she eats. But with sadness, it’s just that this way of creeping in, even over the smallest thing, that whole dialogue I was trying to explain to her like what it felt like, how it works, how my mind [works], and so that’s kind of what birthed that scene of being like, I wanna talk about the shame that comes with making those attempts be her own struggles.

I come from a family of suicide and have lost. I lost my grandfather — my father is still alive in real life. It was my grandfather, and it was listening my whole life to him talking about losing his father that way, how he searched everywhere for a letter, and all of these different things. So there were all these things that were so important to me to talk about in the movie. So I found every opportunity of connection to try and talk about so many of these important things and the unanswered questions, and some of the pain that comes with losing someone to suicide, but nearly losing your own life to suicide.

What birthed that scene was just kind of wanting to educate others on what it’s like, and kind of how it works. So it was with that purpose, but of course… Also, my production company is Hopeful Romantix. I love love, so this is like all of my favorite things put into one communicating about mental health, romance, all of the things.

Also, I just had the best partner. Shiloh Fernandez is one of my closest friends now, and we have been very close ever since making this movie. So I’m just also so lucky because he was so game for everything. He took the mission on and he took Trenton on very personally. What’s really funny is everyone’s convinced that Trenton is my husband because my husband has a neck tattoo. But I wrote the film before I had even met my husband. I always joke that I manifested him through writing the script. So it was just also he took it very like, “I have to do justice to Anthony.” I’m like, “It’s not Anthony. It’s not. it’s Trenton. It’s what we’re creating here.” But yeah, I was so lucky. The team I had was incredible.

It’s a really cute love story packaged within this really emotional film. Since this was your first time directing and you’re also the star of this film, how was it finding that balance with your scene partners? Because that’s a collaborative experience, but you’re also their director in this case. So was there a transitionary period of putting on both of those caps? How was that?

Again, it kind of comes down to I had an incredible team of support all around me. With them in particular, one of the best parts about directing someone and also being across from them is like, yes, I would whisper secrets into their ear. I would lead them with words in between takes, but I would also change my tactic completely on how I spoke to them. If I wanted to see them be a different way, I would react a different way and watch them react a different way because of that. So it was also so cool because I could talk to them as their director, but I could also push them as the actor across from them.

One of the other key components for me is it’s impossible, you can’t direct yourself. So I also had an acting coach who was there to direct and help lead me, and I talked to him about something I was feeling, and then we’d go on our little journey, or if it was something very personal that I didn’t want them to hear from me, I’d be like, “Hey, go and tell them.” We’d come up with tactics on kind of how… I don’t wanna say mess with their emotions, but to direct them to turn, to make them think about something from a different light, or to try it with just this little bit different of a backstory in this different way. So it was cool because I could push them from across from them. I could whisper to them, I could make him go whisper to them.

It was like, it was a cool level of experimentation. I had never done it before, so there were no rules. It was just kind of like, this is how I’m gonna do it. I love that, and I try and keep that with me as I go into other projects, too, because the second we start to follow other people’s method or their “rules” of being a director or this and that, it’s like my years of being an actor and putting on other people’s skin and backstory and all of that stuff is what makes me an incredible director. Why would I just leave that behind and be like, “No, I’m only a director now.” So, I love that. I just kind of take from anything that’s valuable. What can I use? How can I do that?

I love that you mentioned having the acting coach there because that shows a real lack of ego and a knowledge of limitations that you do not kind of see a lot of the time with people. Your knowledge to do that really shows the collaborative nature of what made this film and kind of your instincts as a filmmaker. So, that’s really ingenious.

Well, thank you for saying that. Because honestly for me, I know everyone’s different, and the great thing about directing is everyone’s voice is so different because of the way they take on different things, right? Like [David] Fincher, he’s tattooed on my arm, he’s one of my favorite directors. I’m nothing like him. I would never direct a movie the way he directs the movie. The great thing is, he directs his movies, and I direct mine, but my favorite thing about filmmaking is collaborating. Like production designers, actors, uh, wardrobe, makeup, hair. I love that I get to build an army, and then it’s the best idea wins. If I went into it with ego, think of how many things that would never exist because I just thought I knew better.

One example that someone brought up yesterday as their favorite scene, and they called me a genius, and I’m like, “I had nothing to do with that.” It was when I run into my room and I’m crying after seeing my sister. Lio comes and sits beside me and doesn’t really say anything. Then the nurse tells her to get out of my room, and instead, she stands up, walks to the outside of the door, and sits right there. That was because Leo was like, “I wouldn’t leave you.” I was like, “If you wouldn’t leave me, don’t leave.” I did not know what they were gonna do until they did it. Then I knew that that was exactly how it had to be, needed to be. So amazing. Thanks for letting me take credit for something I had nothing to do with, it was just purely collaboration and we did a lot of improv and a lot of those moments are like your favorite moments.

So again, if we are too tied to like what ourselves and, and like, “I’m the captain of the ship…” I have no interest [in that]. I want us all to have fun. We didn’t work our asses off our whole lives and be poor most of our lives to get here and then not enjoy it. That would be so sad. I wanna collaborate and have fun.

Thanks to Nadine Crocker for discussing Continue.

Tyler Treese

Tyler Treese is ComingSoon and SuperHeroHype's Editor-in-Chief. An experienced entertainment journalist, his work can be seen at Sherdog, Fanbyte, Rock Paper Shotgun, and more. When not watching the latest movies, Treese enjoys mixed martial arts and playing with his Shiba Inu, Kota.