Mayim Bialik Reflects on Her Emotional Directorial Debut ‘As They Made Us’

Many first-time directors would be first in line at the multiplex to buy a ticket to watch their movie on the big screen, but “As They Made Us” filmmaker Mayim Bialik is just wrapping a long day of shooting on her FOX sitcom “Call Me Kat.”

“I’ve been working since seven in the morning, rehearsing and rewriting,” Bialik says with a laugh as she hops on the phone with Variety on Friday afternoon. “Obviously, everybody’s been congratulating me, and [her “Call Me Kat” co-star] Julian Gant is also in the movie, so we’re both very excited. But it was just like a normal day.”

In fact, the actor, producer, writer and now director was on the way home to her sons and preparing for Shabbat with her mother Beverly. Plus, she notes, “There’s a certain level of terrified that I would be to watch it in a theater.”

It’s a very personal project for the multi-hyphenate performer, who wrote the movie while processing the death of her father, Barry, in 2015. The story centers on Abigail (Diana Agron), a newly-divorced mother of two trying to rebuild her own life, while taking care of her parents Eugene (Dustin Hoffman) and Barbara (Candice Bergen) as her brother Nathan (Simon Helberg) is no longer part of the picture. When Eugene’s health condition begins to worsen, the story charts the dysfunctional family’s road forward, while looking back at how they became estranged to begin with.

It’s a story focused more on healing this complex family than the grief they’re experiencing, Bialik explained.

“Grief is the tool that is being used to tell the story of this family,” she said. “For me, it’s really a story about four very complicated characters, each who are redeemed in their own way. Yes, grief is one of those things that really brings you to your knees and also brings out a lot of, not only your best features, but some of your worst as well.”

This article continues at Variety.com