After 20 years of acting, My Old Ass director Megan Park finds her calling behind the camera.

Megan Park is a little upset that her film is making so many people cry. And this is not just a tear – rather, sobs of the whole body.

She didn’t set out to bring tears with “My Old Ass,” now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman talking to her adult self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between the 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott takes place over a mushroom picking trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it also packs an emotional punch.

Writing, Park said, is often her way of solving problems. When she wrote “My Old Ass” in pen, she was a young mother staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her entire nuclear family were sleeping under one roof. She didn’t know it then, but it was the last time, and she began to wonder what it would be like to know.

In the film, the older Elliott (Aubrey Plaza) advises the younger Elliott (Maisie Stella) not to rush to leave her small town, her younger brothers and her parents, but to slow down and appreciate things for what they are. She also advises her to stay away from a guy named Chad, who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he’s quite nice.

At 38, Park is just beginning his career as a director. Her first film, Aftermath, in which Jenna Ortega plays a teenager who survives a school shooting, was one of those pandemic releases that didn’t even seem real. But it caught the attention of Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment, which contacted Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.

“They really helped motivate me to go for it,” Park said. “They’re just very level-headed, good people, which makes them great producers. They treat everyone the same and I like that. There is no ego, no hierarchy.”

LuckyChap even gave her the option to choose Stella first and build it around her. In a more traditional context, she says, one would start with the most famous person.

Park came to writing and directing after about 20 years of acting. Coming from a small town in Canada (Lindsay, Ontario), she knew she loved art but had no connections to the industry. According to her, the only profession she could imagine was acting. Luckily, she’s had some success with it, with roles in films (Charlie Bartlett) and television shows such as Life with Derek and The Secret Life of the American Teenager (She Was Grace, the Conservative Cheerleader). At that show, she met one of her closest friends, Shailene Woodley, and began to realize that maybe acting wasn’t really her passion.

There wasn’t a single “aha” moment, but she remembers how passionate Woodley was about landing the role in “The Descendants,” which was her breakout role.

“She really wanted the role and she knew it was her role and she just fought for it and worked so hard and was so passionate. I remember thinking it was so inspiring and cool that she felt that way about it. And then I thought, “(expletive), I don’t think about acting that way.”

Instead, Park found that spark in writing and eventually directing, starting with short films and music videos for the likes of Billie Eilish, Gucci Mane and even her husband, singer-songwriter Tyler Hilton, before moving on to filming a feature film.

“I didn’t really know that writing and directing films was a viable career. So I approached it a little backwards,” she said. “I was so lucky that I got that education for 20 years on set before I even got behind the camera, where I actually absorbed a lot more than I thought I would.”

As a director, Park said she has two aesthetic extremes within her. The first is “heartwarming, evergreen, nostalgic films.” Think Chris Columbus, Stepmom, Mrs. Doubtfire” and “My Girl,” she said. Her other passion is quiet French women’s cinema. Céline Sciamma’s “Tomboy” is the only movie she downloaded onto her computer. On set, she likes to remain calm, reminding those around her that they are not “saving lives.”

“I honestly think it’s an important mentality because people are so passionate about it. There will always be a fire, there will always be a shortage of time, but there will always be a solution to the problem,” she said. “I try to explain clearly what I need, but at the same time be very flexible. I think the best directors are people who believe their role isn’t the ultimate genius behind the magic, because you’re not. You are the curator of creating an environment for creativity to flourish.”

As an actress, she’s seen all the extremes: energies that work and those that don’t, and how all actors need different things from a director. And her actors appreciate that about her.

“I want every movie for the rest of my life to be directed by a woman,” Stella said. “It was one of my favorite experiences. I was just constantly surrounded by feminine energy, which was very inspiring and very safe. It was very cozy and nice, and it was very easy to work in such an environment.”

It’s been almost a year since My Old Ass became one of the breakout films of the Sundance Film Festival, and almost three years since she started working on it, or, in fact, half of her life. -year-old daughter (she calls it “Macy’s movie”). With a new four-month-old baby, she has just started work on another film. But she still feels the glow of “My Old Ass” and the effect it has on the audience.

“You don’t really have that high of an expectation that people will feel anything, let alone how deeply they will feel the film,” she said. “It was something surreal and honest and very beautiful, and it was all hard to take in.”