“The movie started from the pillow humping scene.” This isn’t the exact line that started The Skinny’s chat with director Chad Hartigan, but it began one of the more memorable anecdotes about the creation of his new film, Morris from America. In the sequence Hartigan refers to, his eponymous teenage protagonist (newcomer Markees Christmas), a sweet lad who’s fallen hard for a local girl, decides to act out his confusing feelings upon his bedroom pillow.

“So I really went through a phase that I assume is not uncommon in boys, where I humped my pillow a lot, but at some point got bored with just humping it, so I dressed it up in clothes and danced with it and made a night out of humping it. And that was always a story that, when I told people, got a reaction. I felt like it could be a good scene in a movie if you can capture what’s awkward and funny but also innocent and tender about it. So that was the very first scene in my head and I started to build a coming-of-age story from there…

Full interview for The Skinny