A Conversation with Stephanie Turner

I spoke with American filmmaker and actress Stephanie Turner about her film Justine, available NOW on Netflix. We also discuss her childhood as a “football brat” (her words, not mine) and how she got started in the industry.

Yanis: Congratulations on all the success with Justine. How would you describe Justine to somebody with a Netflix subscription who might want to check it out?

Stephanie: It’s a story about a single mom who takes a job as a nanny to an eight-year-old girl with spina bifida. Over the course of their time together they form an unlikely friendship and help each other overcome some obstacles.

Y: Why this topic?

S: I taught a children’s choir for eight years and I was a nanny for many years. I was around a lot of different kids. Some had behavioral disabilities, some had physical disabilities. That was really the inspiration for it.

Y: How did you get your start in this industry?

S: I always wanted to be an actor as a kid. Right out of high school I moved to LA and I started at a two year acting school on my 18th birthday. My entrance into the industry was as an actor. I think as a young girl growing up in the 90s, I was drawn to films and stories.

As I became more familiar with filmmakers and all the different women that were making these incredible things, that were writing them and making films themselves, that’s when I started to open my mind to doing that myself. And telling the stories that I wanted to tell, and not just be an actor in them.

Y: Speaking of stories to tell, you have quite the story. You moved from Dallas to Virginia when you were just 10. That’s a tough age to move.

And then in the middle of high school you moved from Virginia to San Diego. How did you adjust to that? Those are pivotal ages to have such a radical adjustment.

S: Moving around as a kid is challenging, but my dad [Norv Turner] was a professional football coach, and so it was just understood if he gets another job and we have to move then we’re gonna move.

I didn’t see it as a choice or that there was any other option for me as a kid, so it was something we accepted. So much of my life too was determined by the football teams and how well they were doing.

Sometimes you wanted to get out of the city. For example, when we moved from DC there were so many [Washington Redskins] fans that were awful to my dad. There were contests on the radio. “Who’s gonna put the padlocks on Turner’s moving van?”

It was a different era where social media wasn’t around. That meant local writers and local news and local sports shows were really really intense because everybody listened them and everybody talked about it.

So as a sixteen year old sort of angsty teenager, I wanted to get out of the DC area because people weren’t being very kind to my dad, and obviously as a kid that’s a lot to process and you take it personally and I was really angry about that.

And also I was excited to move to the west coast because I knew I wanted to move to LA to be an actor, and when you’re on the east coast you think of California as being like “California if I could just get there then I can move to LA.”

So my senior year of high school I finished in San Diego, and I would drive up [to LA] and that’s how I found my first agent. That’s how I started researching acting schools.

If we had a day off school or on the weekends, I would come up to LA — my grandparents live in LA and so I would stay with them. I was born in LA and both my parents are from California.

I was lucky I knew people here and I could stay with them and I could research and sort of started to plan my life after high school during my senior year. But that being said, those were positives about leaving. There’s hard things about leaving high school before you graduate.

In a lot of ways it’s like the kids that aren’t graduating right now. I didn’t graduate with the kids that I went to high school with. I didn’t have all those special moments I had them with people I barely knew. But that’s OK.

Y: So what would you tell 16-year-old Stephanie?

S: I would’ve encouraged myself at that age to start doing the things I’m doing now, earlier. I think it took me many years to start writing. I think I waited a long time to get acting jobs.

I auditioned and I put so much energy in trying to get acting roles and trying to get a good agent but really I wish I would’ve — it works out the way it does and everyone’s path is different, but I would encourage myself at a younger age. I do encourage young women now to really think about the types of stories you want to tell and start telling them.

Y: You talked about how everyone’s path is different. Are you ultimately grateful the path you’ve taken? Did it prepare you for things that came later?

S: Yeah absolutely. I think the advantage of moving around the country and living in different cities is you experience so many different types of people. I didn’t grow up around the same people my whole life and I think as a kid I longed for that community.

I saw people who knew everyone they went to school with, who had been going to school with the same kids since they were four years old.

I was envious of that, but now I look back and I think of all the different people I know, in all the different cities and all the different backgrounds that I’ve experienced from people I grew up with.

At 18 years old I already had all of that life experience. I think in some ways it made me ready to go and pursue a career at that age. There is much I’ve gotten out of that childhood, even though at times it was difficult.

Y: Where’s home?

S: I mean really it’s LA at this point. This is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere in the time since graduating high school. I think LA is what I’m most familiar with it’s the place I’ve lived the longest. But I have a lot of nostalgia and fond memories of other places I’ve lived.

For example, my older brother just got hired by the Washington Redskins. He’s a football coach as well and he just got hired as their offensive coordinator. So he and his family just moved back there and we haven’t had a chance to go visit yet but hopefully we’ll be able to this fall.

I worked there for 7 years. A lot of my childhood memories are in the Virginia-DC area. I wouldn’t say that’s my hometown, but definitely when I’ve gone back there I feel like I’m going back into my past or like I’m going back to a familiar homey place.

Y: You mentioned your brother and father are football coaches. Even though you aren’t a football coach, you write movies, you direct, you act and you even produce. Did your father’s industriousness rub off on you? I mean you did name your production company Football Brat Productions after all.

S: It definitely impacted me and I think the biggest way is just that I saw my dad doing what he loved every single day. He never said things like “Oh I have to go to work,” or “I’m going to work.” It was just a part of him. It was just a part of what he did.

My only example of someone working was someone doing something they loved. And my dad for his whole life lived and breathed football, strategy and thinking about the game.

I think that is why I decided, and thought it was even possible, to become an actor because no one was putting those limitations on me in my home. I saw someone who pursued their dreams. He pursued what he was good at — he was an athlete growing up and he pursued that because he loved it. That’s why I chose to be an actor.

Looking at other people as I’ve grown up I’ve realized not everybody has that example. People think of working as paying the bills, and I just never thought of it like that.

Y: You’re a big advocate for people with disabilities and you also come from a football family. How do you reconcile the fact that every year more research shows a correlation between football and disabilities stemming from brain damage?

S: It’s very scary what the data’s shown and doctors have found when they study brains and CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy). I don’t know. I for sure don’t have the answer on that. I don’t know what the NFL will do. It’s hard because in Los Angeles I sometimes feel very removed from the sports world because in entertainment in that world sometimes there’s not a lot of interest in sports.

Although we have many teams [in Los Angeles] it’s not considered one of these “die hard” cities in the US compared to Dallas or DC where the teams and fan bases are intense and loyal. Sometimes I feel like “are people losing interest in the NFL because of the brain stuff?” But then you look at the numbers and it doesn’t appear to be that. In LA maybe that’s the case, but around the country the interest in the game is still very high.

Obviously I don’t think anyone wants anybody to have a brain injury from playing and I think the league is doing all it can to try to avoid that, but I have no idea.

All I know is it’s scary, and to see the former athletes who are having ailments because of this and to see all the studies coming, I think at some point the league is gonna have to do something. Maybe they are working towards that right now and we just don’t know.

Y: It’s a fascinating topic. Would you let your kids play football?

S: I think I would encourage them to play sports that had less contact. I think I’m so conflicted because football is such a huge part of my life.

Y: That’s what makes it such an interesting question.

S: Yeah, exactly. I think it’s an ever evolving thing. My kids are young. My kids are four and one. I think if someone is very passionate about something and they’re drawn to it and passionate about it, then you kind of have to let them explore that, whatever that means to them.

But my husband played basketball. He played in college and he played his whole life and he loves basketball so I’m “Ok we can push basketball and see if they’re into that.” And if they come and say “oh I want to play football,” then that would be another discussion.

Y: What’s next for you?

S: I’m trying to make my next feature film. I have a script that’s ready that I co-wrote with somebody that I plan to co-direct with as well. And that’s kind of ready then we want to push toward production although it’s tricky to push toward anything when we can’t leave our houses.

But so that’s that and I’m actually writing something else right now, so continuing to create stuff and make stuff and hopefully making my next film.

You can follow Stephanie Turner @stephanieturner on Instagram and Twitter.