Erin Lee Carr Released Two Documentaries and a Book in the Past Six Months—Here’s How She Did It

You may not know Erin Lee Carr’s name, but chances are you’ve devoured—and perhaps even been enlightened by—one of her projects over the past six months. In April, Carr published All That You Leave Behind, a memoir about her relationship with her dad, New York Times media columnist David Carr, who died in 2015. Then, less than a month later, her documentary At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal debuted on HBO, vaulting her into the ranks of filmmakers who stick the landing while tackling the most difficult topics. And now HBO will air another of Carr’s films on July 9. I Love You, Now Die is focused on Michelle Carter, the Massachusetts teen who was charged with voluntary manslaughter after she allegedly coerced her boyfriend to commit suicide via text message. (Carr is also behind Mommy Dead and Dearest, a documentary about the infamous case of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard.) Ahead of the release of I Love You, Now Die, we checked in with Carr about addiction, grief, her jam-packed schedule, and her advice for new directors.

Glamour: So it’s been a big year for you—your first book and not one but two documentaries, all landing in the world within six months of one another. What’s that been like for you?

Erin Lee Carr: Very overwhelming. It’s really a lot easier for me to make documentaries; they’re about other people, and it’s a job I love that I’m good at. Although with every one it becomes a little bit harder because I get so close to the people involved. But writing about my father—it was thinking about him for hours and hours each day and required a ton of therapy.

Which project did you take on first, or were you working on all three in tandem?

First was I Love You, Now Die, then I was writing the book, and then it was At the Heart of Gold. It’s funny that they came out in reverse order.

When you first heard what had happened with Larry Nassar, was any part of you like, "I already have two balls in the air—I can’t take on anything else"? Or did you just know you needed to tell that story?

It’s my personality to take on more things. I was already working on another gymnastics film when that story broke, so I knew I needed to include Larry Nassar.

Do you remember where you were when you first heard about Michelle Carter?

I’m always researching things that are crime- and internet-related—that’s basically my sweet spot—and so I think it was a Washington Post headline and it had the text, "It’s now or never," that Michelle Carter sent to [boyfriend] Conrad Roy. And those small words strung together led me to the bigger story. I immediately started reaching out to people involved with the case.

How is writing a book similar to or different from writing a documentary?

Filmmaking is collaborative, and writing is lonely. I was alone with my thoughts, day after day. I’d written short pieces before but nothing of the order of 75,000 words.

Your dad’s memoir, The Night of the Gun, told the story of his own life from the perspective of a reporter. Did you approach All That You Leave Behind the same way?

I had emails and text messages and voicemails that have a time stamp and could tell me the time and place and help with my memory, but I chose not to continue the same reporting style as The Night of the Gun, one, because I didn’t want to do a repeat and, two, because my dad is an incredible investigative reporter and I knew if I tried to do anything like that, it wouldn’t be successful. I always use the present tense to describe him since he’s part of my every day. I involve him in my life and think about him all the time.

The book is a road map through your grief and struggles with addiction. What was it like to write about such personal subjects layered on top of losing your dad?

When we talk about early recovery, there’s this thought of "Don’t talk about it, you can’t write about this until you’re 5, 10, 15 years in to make sure it’s real." To mention your sobriety is to break the rules. But given that my father was the one who said, "You have a problem," I thought it made a lot of sense to include in the book. I knew I was going to be writing about things that were pretty embarrassing, and I didn’t want anyone who’s paying me large sums of money to do a documentary to wonder if I’m trustworthy. So I checked in with some of my dad’s creative consiglieres, and I said, "Am I going to hurt my chances of continuing the job I love?" The answer was no. Luckily, we live in a society that values honesty and recovery.

What’s the hardest interview you’ve ever done?

One was with Conrad Roy’s father, who had never spoken to the press and is in a ton of pain. I would ask him questions and it was almost like he couldn’t respond, like there was so much holding him back. I remember shaking a little bit in that interview. I felt like I was trespassing.

How do you earn the trust of a subject?

I think it’s about doing pretape interviews. It’s about having a body of work that suggests thoughtfulness and nuance. The day of the interview, I take the person away from the cameras and the crew and we sit down and I explain, "This is what the interview is. There’s no 'gotcha' question." I think locking eyes and saying, "We’re going to do this and I’m not going to take advantage" is a really important part.

What’s your best advice for someone who has a story to tell but isn’t sure how to get started?

Start with a scene, watch everything you can get your hands on, have a sense of where your story fits into the ecosystem. And when people reject you? Keep going.

Elisabeth Egan is the author of A Window Opens and the chief correspondent at @100postcards.

Originally Appeared on Glamour