What drew me to the story when I first read it was how raw and real it was. I’ll Be There is a heartfelt story about a young woman finally finding peace with her blended family. The film is based on real events and rooted in reality, but I was also drawn to the deeply interior and dreamlike moments in the story, which become more frequent and surreal for Grace with each passing sleep-deprived day.

This was always envisioned as an Austin-based project, and one of the many challenges we faced in development and pre-production was finding a credible approach to doubling Austin, Texas for 2009-era Los Angeles. Our locations team was up to the task and found terrific options for the myriad locations called for in the script, including Circuit of the Americas, an F1 race track that doubles beautifully for the 5 Freeway! Our cast is led by the brilliant New York- and L.A.-based actors Jasmine Batchelor, Ryan Cooper, Dorien Wilson, and Victoria Kelleher, but filming in Austin also allowed us to take advantage of a wonderful pool of diverse talent behind and in front of the camera, including Texas-based actors Marc Pouhé, Ajna Jai, Donny Boaz, Mikala Gibson, Jeremy Batiste, Celestina Harris, Casandra Canales, Kianna Sanchez, Cleofas Soto, Kenneth Bradley, and Erik Mathew.