"You see her actually for a minute, when she's driving Lucas Hedges [as adult Otis] to rehab, she's in the car with him," director Alma H'arel told Refinery29. "There was a minute where there was more to this part. Initially, the script was told in a linear way, and then we re-edited it, and went back and forth, and actually opened with Lucas. So, we had to drop some of it. The way Shia wanted to explore this and write it, was about the lack of [a] mother. Shia's mother is the most important person in his life. This is about the period in his life where he got traumatized from not having a mother, and being under the masculine influence.”