I notice his youthful appearance as he enters the room. Looking like he might be ready for a high school yearbook picture, I think of how David Gordon Green must relate to the young actors of his well received films, "George Washington," "All the Real Girls," and now "Undertow." In touring 14 cities David is getting the word out on the film. I spoke with Green about his notion of filmmaking and the work of his current film.

PS: An undertow is a reference to dangerous waters. Water is often a symbol of rejuvenation and healing. Is the final scene with Chris wading in the water a rebirth of sorts?

DGG: Very much. It’s a theme of rebirth, but it’s also the threat. Which in a way is a strange, sadistic baptism; …where someone may go down to end his life, it might be seen as a moment of birth.

PS What about Tim’s illness?

DGG I and the character designed a kind of distinctive character obstacle that would be kind of an intimate moment between the audience and this character, something that wasn’t necessarily going to be shared or seen in ensemble. …An idea where I thought (that) the other characters think that Tim has this physical condition. The audience knows that it’s more of an internal, mental stress and anguish, sadness, frustration. Technically, we decided to be where this kid is trying to contemplate things that his brain’s not mature enough or developed enough to handle. And so that the frustration of not being able to grasp what you’re being presented with in your life causes him to vomit excessively—so that he can’t hold down food, so that he’s malnourished, so that he lacks iron in his body, and he looks to the environment, and the elements in the environment, such as dirt and lead based paint to help compensate….

PS Because it was much clearer as far as Chris was concerned. I have this feeling that he always felt out of place, and then we find out that he is actually Deel’s son.

DGG Yes, there’s that fear of recognizing, I mean of coming to terms with what you already know.

PS What’s your key to working with young actors that’s perhaps different with the adults in your films?

DGG It’s a little different. I’m going for the same result, it’s just a matter of trying to get them to the same places is different.

PS Because they don’t have the life’s experiences?

DGG Well, it’s a different life experience. The seasoned actor brings experience and perspective, and focus and craft to his performance. The value of a kid, a child or a non-actor, is that they bring themselves a lot more. They’re a lot more available as human beings, because they’re not conditioned yet as actors—if that makes sense. Like, to get someone to be natural, to be themselves, to bring elements of their life, when their life is relatively unexplored, is really refreshing, and it brings naturalness and an honesty to their performance.

For guys like Dermot Mulroney who’ve been around for years and done a hundred movies, have built up walls and designed craft to compensate for their emotional walls, and a lot of my job is trying to destroy those emotional walls to get them to places they’ve never been before. But it is different, because just the conditioning of actors and a lot of the way actors are trained and conditioned to enunciate words and amplify their voice…I like the mumbles and stutters of speech that are imperfect. And I have to deconstruct things within their training that designed them to be perfect, or to strive towards perfection. They may just massacre a line reading on a take and I’ll say ‘Perfect,’ and they’ll say, ‘But I just totally ruined it,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s exactly the way it should be."

PS I thought I recognized the young actor Jamie Bell but to realize that he was "Billy Elliot" (from the British film "Billy Elliot) – did he come with an Americanized accent?

DGG Not at all. This is his first American accent. I met him and I was really aggressively wanting him to be able to do it. I trusted him a lot. And in the back of my mind I was a little bit concerned because he had never done it before. But I just knew he was the right guy. And I was even like, ‘Just let him speak in a British accent, he was so much the right guy. Accent doesn’t even matter, let’s just go crazy.’ But he was like, ‘Let me dedicate to training and the rehearsal period on this and do it right.’ And you know he got it. Because I’m from the South and I have an ear for the dialogue and the way that people speak, and especially when people aren’t from the South and try to do southern dialects it’s easy for them to go over the top…and turn it into a cartoon. So for me it was as much about bringing it back down to reality as it was finding the clues and the goals.

PS Were there some local people in the film?

DGG Yeah, a lot of locals, a lot of non-actors. I just love – anytime you get me in a room with someone who’s either totally confident or totally crazy, we’re going to have a good time (laughter).

Like the guy that plays the mechanic on the tow truck? I met him in Chicago three years ago. He was just this local guy who kind of wanted to do some movies, I was friends with his brother and I kept in touch with him. And when this came up I said, ‘Why don’t you fly down and work as a local and be in the movie?’ So he flew down to Savannah where we were shooting. A lot of people were just fresh faces from around the community, that I just wanted to be in the movie.

PS I noticed that Tim Orr was your cinematographer. Has he been on all of your films?

DGG Yeah, we worked together since—we went to film school together. We worked on short films together and then we’ve done all three features together.

PS So, do you have sort of a shorthand beforehand, or is it even necessary now?

DGG Yeah. The whole crew. All the guys are in their late 20s, and have just stuck together—guys and girls—you know it’s just a good diversity of artists and technicians. We’ve known each other for ten years and we get together and make movies, and then go off and do things on our own. So yeah, you have that shorthand and that communication where you can just kind of like point and everybody knows what you mean. And especially in working with these low, low budget movies – I want this movie to look like it cost 10 million dollars. You know I would love it to look like it cost 10 times what it did cost. So, it’s important for me to put all the money on screen, and if you have people that are working not just on the clock for a paycheck, but they’re working to make a good movie it’s going to get there.

PS Other than your own, what kind of movies do you enjoy watching?

DGG I’m a big fan of American films of the 70s, in particular. Those are really great. But I watch every piece of trash – I have a lot of guilty pleasures. That’s the great thing about NetFlicks, is that I don’t have to be embarrassed about buying a ticket to something’s that’s crap (laughter).

PS So, what are you working on now?

DGG Right now I’m working on a couple of different things. I’m writing a script for Sidney Pollack, he’s directing. And I have this adaptation I did of a book called "The Secret Life of Bees." It’s a best seller, a really popular book. It takes place during the civil rights – about a young girl who goes to live with these beekeepers. A very southern, South Carolina story that I’ve been really attracted to and did an adaptation of the book and …I just finished the script and we’ll see the likelihood of getting some good actors for it.

The success of "George Washington" and "All the Real Girls" was putting a small price tag on what creative freedom to us is and hopefully they’ll give us a little more next time.

It ("Undertow") doesn’t have the big marquee names or a lot of the concepts that a lot of films have, but it works within the genre of a thriller and as a domestic drama, with some lighthearted moments. It’s like a Chinese food buffet, there’s a little something for everyone, even if some of it’s a little too spicy.