Veena Sud created “The Killing,” which was nominated for six Emmys. She also created “Seven Seconds,” an ensemble drama centered around the hit and run of a young black teenager by a white police officer. 

“The Lie” will begin screening at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival on September 13.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

VS: “The Lie” navigates the lives of two divorced parents whose deeply troubled teenage daughter commits a murder. They’re faced with the horrible choice of making her pay for her crime or covering it up – in a moment of panic, they choose the latter.

The film takes place over the course of a few days and is an intense exploration of a parent’s consuming and sometimes blinding love for a child – and the lengths they go to protect her.

The film is an exploration of love, family, divorce, guilt and two people barely holding onto their sanity as their lives quickly unravel in the wake of their daughter’s terrible crime.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

VS: They say a parent is only as happy as their unhappiest child. I was interested in exploring this idea, especially when one’s unhappy and damaged child commits a horrible crime. How far do the bonds of parental love go? What primal instincts are triggered when our child is endangered? How quickly the veneer of morality is ripped away when one’s child, one’s family, one’s “tribe” is threatened? And at what point do we cross a line we can never come back from?

As a parent myself, I’m familiar with that fierce – and sometimes ferocious – love for a child and wanted to delve deeply into that. I’m also fascinated by the shades of gray that exist in the commission of a crime, how every “bad guy” has a reason why, how even the most terrible acts are justified by love, revenge, loyalty, blindness to the humanity of the victim.

I was also interested in the notion of whose child matters. In the film, there’s the teenage girl who commits the crime, and her best friend who’s the victim. And though this is a story about one family, it’s also a microcosm of bigger issues we’re facing today in the U.S. around race, around whose children matter and whose don’t. Look at what’s happening on the U.S. border to children, what’s happening internationally to Syrian children fleeing war.

When Peter Sarsgaard and I first started talking about doing this film together, we were horrified by the news reports about refugee children drowning off the coast of Greece and Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban. How could our administration turn a blind eye to these children? Peter pointed out that they can do it because it’s not “their” kids and that struck me deeply – how circling the wagon around “us” and “them” is such a primal, ugly part of our natures.

So I was interested in exploring that impulse, making the character of the dead child’s father Muslim to tease out those threads in the story, to see how quickly – and easily – he goes from innocent victim to possible perpetrator in the eyes of the police. And in the eyes of the audience, too. Now that’s one hell of a litmus test.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

VS: What would you do if your child, your wife, your husband, your loved one committed a crime and could get away with it? It’s a deeply uncomfortable question because it shakes the foundations of who we believe we are, our sense of morality and integrity. It shows how fragile our ordered worlds and lives are, how easily shattered when someone you love commits a crime.

I’ve written crime shows for over 15 years and spent a few decades with police officers and it’s true – everyone who commits a crime has justifications for the bad things, big and small, they do. I mean, who are we, really, when no one is looking?

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

VS: It was a gift coming back to Toronto, where I was born, to make this film. It’s the first time I’ve been back since I was a baby. Both my parents have passed on, so it was really special to be here, making a film about family.

But we shot in January, in the dead of winter, and, lucky us, right when one of the worst cold spells ever hit the city. I’ve never bought so much winter gear, I’ve never been that cold in my life, ever. And Peter Sarsgaard had to fall in a river! That’s commitment.

W&H: How did you get your film funded?

VS: I met my producer Alix Madigan in 2016 through a mutual friend and she introduced me to the German film “Wir Monster,” which my film was adapted from. I loved the premise and took some time to re-imagine it, writing my own take. I was also in the middle of launching and showrunning my second TV show, “Seven Seconds,” for Netflix so that took a lot of my time. But I finally had a script Alix and I felt good about it, and we started to talk about cast.

Peter and Mireille Enos were our first choices, I was so eager to work with both of them after “The Killing.” I had been looking for a perfect project to do together – especially after their brilliant, two person tour de force episode together in that series – and I was really hoping they’d spark to this movie. And lucky for me, they did. It was a perfect reunion of two great actors, a chance to do a deep dive into raw, rough, intense emotionality.

Alix took the film out and within a few days Jason Blum called us to meet. He was about to go out of town – as was I – and we got together within a few hours of that call. It was fast and furious and magical, really, that first meeting.

I knew hands down from the moment he said “you have director’s cut” Jason was the one. How could I say no? But truly, he and his head of development, Couper Samuelson, and all of Blumhouse gave me so much creative freedom and support, I got the chance to truly see the film through as I had envisioned it. That’s a rare and beautiful thing in this industry.

The cherry on top of it all was when Joey King came in to read for the role of Kayla. We had seen a lot of young girls but when Joey walked in, she had me in tears. She’s got such a big heart and loads of talent. I was blown away by how much she could dial into this girl’s pain and still keep her relatable and real. I had my dream team at that point and we were off to the races.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

VS: As a small child, my parents let me watch whatever they were watching on TV: “Twilight Zone,” “Kojak,” Hitchcock films. I’ll never forget the shower scene from “Psycho.” I was pretty traumatized by that – it didn’t help that my brother tried to scare me by jumping out of the shower with a butter knife. But despite the PTSD, watching great film and TV seared into me the incredible power of the moving image.

Films and TV became the means by which I could experience – and express – every emotion, every heartbreak, every big and little thing. I was always writing stories as a kid, dark depressing things – my first short story was about a pony and it opened with “Today I died.” Yeah, I was a real hoot. I think I was eight and for whatever reason I was fascinated by the idea of what it would be like to look back at your life after you were dead. Maybe it was too much Hitchcock at a young age, who knows. But that set me on the path.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

VS: The worst advice is anything that smacks about second guessing “the audience.” Once you start thinking about how other people will react, you’re fucked. Think, instead, about what moves you, what keeps you up at night, what you’re obsessed with, what you can’t stop thinking about. Every step of the way – from development, to script, to casting, to set, to editing – you will need a finely honed inner compass to follow what you set out to do. Not what anyone else set out to do – just you.

The best advice I ever got was from a film school friend who said, “I won’t make it next year or in three years or five years from now. But in a decade I will.” My take away from that was keep going, keep going, keep going. Don’t ever give up, even when you hit heartbreaks galore – which you will, again and again and again. You’ve been given this great gift and opportunity, stick with it. Keep pushing that boulder up the mountain. Insist on your success, even when no one else does. Especially as a woman, especially as an artist of color. Keep writing, every day. Stay excited about this beautiful thing we do. They’ll have to make your film eventually. Make sure you’ve stuck around until that day.

 W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

VS: There are quite a few so this is a tough one. But if I had to pick I’d choose the film that finally pushed me over the edge in believing I could make my own movies – Leslie Harris’ “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.” It’s such a seminal film for so many reasons – a woman of color behind the camera and in front of the camera, a coming of age story featuring a young black teen as the narrator and the central narrative, girl’s friendships, a whole new and desperately needed take on teenagers – white lust-lorn boys from suburbia aren’t the only teenagers in this country, shocker.

It broke so many boring old molds and showed what could be possible in independent cinema. Harris’ style and storytelling were so fresh and exciting and heartbreaking, I’ll never forget the first time I saw the film and the palpable excitement in the theater, how the film just knocked the breath out of all of us. How it felt like cinema could be on the cutting edge of culture again.

W&H: Hollywood and the global film industry are in the midst of undergoing a major transformation. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?

VS: An openness to women directors and storytellers that is just beginning to, if not level, the playing field, and open up the game to other qualified players besides white men. An interest in storylines which delve deeper than the old tropes and go beyond the routine hyper sexualization of female characters – go figure, it’s 2017, you’d think our industry would have woken up decades ago.

But even when I created “The Killing” back when, the shock and surprise audiences, critics, and executives expressed at seeing the main character, a female cop, not in high heels and mini skirts and botox tells you how low the bar has been in this industry for far too long.

Ultimately #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite created watershed moments in our industry, forced the powers to be to recognize that our big screens and small screens do not represent what the world looks like today.

Now we’re seeing TV and cinema on the cutting edge of culture and political movements, and that’s so exciting. Art matters now, in a way it hasn’t for a long time. And it has to say something, especially in these times. These movements opened up the doors to new ideas of heroes and heroines, to stories that elevate and expand our horizons and consciousness and speak all our truths. It’s about time.