How filmmaker Nadine Crocker continues to impact mental health awareness with movies

For filmmaker Nadine Crocker, making movies that provide authentic and impactful commentary on mental health struggles is at the heart of what guides her work.

Crocker, who began her career as an actor, has been praised by stars like The O.C. icon Rachel Bilson, specifically for her independent feature Continue, based on the filmmaker's personal experience with depression and surviving a suicide attempt when she was 23.

Most recently, Crocker's film Desperation Road was released Oct. 6, based on the novel by Michael Farris Smith, who also wrote the screenplay. In the film, Russell (Garrett Hedlund) has been recently released from prison in Mississippi. When he meets Maben (Willa Fitzgerald), who has a young daughter and who killed a police officer, things take an even darker turn as the film dives into the traumas of each character's past.

As a mother, the first element of Desperation Road that spoke to Crocker was the mother-daughter relationship in the story.

"I'm very particular about what I attach to, for me in my life, personally, to leave my family, to do all those things, it has to have a message I can really embody and that I feel my voice has to tell," Crocker told Yahoo Canada. "So when I read the script numerous times and went through the book, I was like, OK I think this is one that I have to give voice to, because it has such important messaging, but I never want to spoon feed. It was so beautifully in the undercurrent."

"When I first dove in with Michael, I was like, 'Alright listen, I'm very hands on. ... Everything matters to me.' He was so supportive and collaborative, and I'm very lucky that he took all of my notes and then really let me start deep diving, myself, on the script."

Working with Garrett Hedlund: From muse to close friend

When it comes to working with actors on material that is particularly emotional, Crocker says, first and foremost, she creates "a really safe space."

"I'm asking them to go to extremely vulnerable places, put themselves in extremely vulnerable situations," Crocker said. "We need to be the container, the home, that keeps them safe, that is supportive to them."

"So everyone really embodies that and luckily, on both of my films now, it's felt like a family. It's the family you choose, which is the best kind."

While Desperation Road stars Willa Fitzgerald, Ryan Hurst and controversially Mel Gibson in a smaller role, Crocker established a particularly special relationship with Garrett Hedlund.

"I joke about this all the time that he went from being my muse to one of my closest friends, but that's really what it feels like," Crocker said. "I had written like three roles for him, when you imagine someone and you're typing."

"From the moment I saw his work, it really resonated. ... You see this entire story taking place with no words, like behind their eyes. You see their struggle, you see the vulnerability and something about Garrett is he is such a vulnerable human being, and he just really embodies these characters."

While Crocker didn't write Desperation Road, unlike Continue, the filmmaker does believe that, particularly with the type of stories she's attracted to, her personal life always "gets brought into it."

"I have a lot of trauma in my life, we were so broke we had our son, ... I am a sexual assault survivor, I am all of these things, so for me, it turned into something I could deeply connect to," she said. "Because I've been through so many of these situations that this young woman was going through."

"When you start cultivating and really bringing things to it that are really important to you, and little sprinkles of my heart I felt really found their way there, so it felt like my own by the end of it. You love all of these characters, you love the people you're with, and so by the end of it, it's just as personal to me as Continue."

Nadine Crocker's commitment to advocacy, paying it forward mentality

Following the release of Desperation Road, Crocker already has other projects in the works.

"I was manifesting a producer, Robbie Brenner who produced Barbie and all of these amazing films that I've loved and revered for a long time, and she was on my vision board and the universe just brought her into my life, and she lit up my life like a beacon," Crocker said. "Now we have two projects going together."

One of the films Crocker's also working on is one she wrote, Dear Son, based on the letters she has written to her son since he was born.

For any project Crocker creates, she's also made a commitment to supporting charities she's closely connected to. She also started her own non-profit.

"All of my films have ... a charity aspect, so on that film I'm donating a portion of the proceeds to mental health, suicide prevention, and then Alzheimer's," Crocker said.

"For me, it's getting to tell really important stories and the fact that I feel like I'm actually going to get to change the world in a small way through my films. Not just through messaging, but actually through profits to charities, to actually create impact, and that was a dream of mine. ... I'm a suicide survivor. So every day that I'm here, I'm just so grateful. ... Every day that I'm on this planet, I want to make sure that I'm saying something and that I'm doing something, and that I'm helping people."