Riley Stearns grew up in Pflugerville, TX, a suburb of Austin. His feature debut FAULTS premiered at SXSW in 2014 and went on to play festivals around the world. THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE, his second feature, also premiered at SXSW in 2017. The film was released by Bleecker Street domestically and Universal Pictures internationally. DUAL is Stearns’ third feature as writer/director and first as a producer. When not making films you can find Stearns on the mats training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Topics Discussed In This Episode: Riley’s origin story Riley’s first memories of growing up The memory retention of “highly sensitive people” Riley’s past life as a musician How Riley started writing short films and feature films Riley initially finding his voice through mimicking other people’s writing styles When Saman and Riley met at SXSW in 2013 Where the initial idea of Dual came from How Riley creates the tone in his films Riley’s time working as a staff writer for TV shows Riley speaks about legacy Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Logistics for getting films made Artists Mentioned: Aaron Paul (Actor) Karen Gillan (Actor) Jim Jarmusch (Director) Yorgos Lanthimos (Director) Aaron Stewart-Ahn (Filmmaker) Jack Nicholson (Actor) Riley’s IMDB Page instagram.com/rileystearns twitter.com/rileystearns