She’s one of the most unique and successful women directors working today, but Sam originally launched her career as an artist in the ‘90s alongside other defining art-stars of the day like Damien Hirst. Such success followed a tough childhood—her father left when she was nine and she was estranged from her mother at 15. Sam made a surprising discovery, however, just a few years later while walking down the street and seeing her mother through a window. “She was living three doors down from where we were living alone, me, my sister, and my brother,” Sam tells Refinery29 global editor-in-chief Christene Barberich on this week’s UnStyled podcast. “The thing is,” she adds, “I'm quite empathetic, so I do kind of understand what she was going through and the process that took her there.”