Brittany Snow on Changing People's Perceptions with Her Oscar-Nominated Short Film About Abortion“ ”(Exclusive)

The Nazrin Choudhury-directed film follows Snow as a single mom who crosses state lines in search of an abortion

Brittany Snow is making an impact with her new project.

Next month, the 37-year-old actress — best known for comedies like Pitch Perfect, Hairspray and John Tucker Must Die — will see her film, Red, White and Blue, compete for the Best Live Action Short Film Oscar at the 96th Academy Awards.

Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, the Nazrin Choudhury-directed short tells the story of a single mom who crosses state lines in search of an abortion.

"The core of the movie,” Snow says, “is about being a mom.”

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Though it centers on the “polarizing” and “hot-button” issue of abortion, Snow tells PEOPLE she “wouldn't go as far to say that it's a political film — even though I'm sure that that makes a lot of people feel better, to put it in that category.”

Recalling the first time she read the script, which was also written by Choudhury, Snow says, “I'd never read something that I felt down to my toes in this way.”

“You go into this film judging this mother and thinking this certain thing, and then to feel the twist through your whole body is something that I had never expected before,” she says.

“And I think that it's because it comes with a lot of understanding that when we read a lot of these stories about abortions, or female reproductive health, we just kind of go in with our own assumptions,” she continues. “And this movie really flipped it on its head, which I thought was really, really important and shocking."

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In Snow’s words, the short aims to “challenge the beliefs that we may have inherently from family, from friends, from the way we grew up” — and she has already seen it do just that.

“I never check my DMs — because there's a lot of crazy people talking about my feet, or whatever — but sometimes I do, especially when Red, White and Blue first came out,” she tells PEOPLE, “and I did get a DM from a girl saying that it completely changed her viewpoint on abortion.”

“I think that that was something huge,” she continues, “because you go into thinking that you're making this film, and maybe it'll touch a few people, but for someone to actually have their perception change is a huge, huge deal.”

Snow says that before filming, she was “a little hesitant” to portray a mother — a career-first for the actress — noting that she doesn’t “necessarily know the intricacies of how to be a mom.”

Instead, she found a different way to connect with Rachel, a single mom of two navigating a situation that is both emotionally and logistically difficult.

“I think what I related to is that I'm not a mom yet, or necessarily, but I do think a lot of women have to face really hard challenges and yet be very strong and stoic and silent in a way,” she says. “Because they don't have another choice.”

“They can't break down and show weakness because they have something to uphold. And I did really resonate with that idea that sometimes you don't have a choice,” she continues. “There is no room for a hysterical breakdown or something, even though it's the hardest thing.”

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So, through a bit of bonding with her onscreen kids — played by Juliet Donenfeld and Redding Munsell — and a “soft” Arkansas accent curated through extensive YouTube research, Rachel quickly took shape.

And under Choudhury’s direction, Snow’s performance helped land the gut-wrenching short an Oscar nomination — news that left Snow “shocked.”

“I always knew that it was that brilliant, and I always had belief in the script and in Nazrin, the director, but you never really think ‘Oscar nomination’ when you think about your career,” she says. “Some people do, but I didn't.”

Snow says she had “big plans” for her career during her child acting days, but quickly learned to “accept the way that your career unfolds and not to be super strategic, but accept just going off of feeling.”

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But if she could turn back the clock, Snow says she would “give myself a little bit of grace.”

“I think I would be a little bit easier on myself if I could go back to the Pitch Perfect days, where I was like, ‘Is this what I'm going to do for the rest of my life? Musicals?’ ” she says. “I remember so many of my agents, managers saying, ‘A career is very long. It's not really going anywhere unless you want it to.’ “

“Betting on yourself is sometimes really hard, but it's also really cool when it works out," she adds.

Red, White and Blue can be viewed through SHORTS TV in theaters across the U.S.

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