Creator Hannah Fidell has been living with the story of A Teacher for quite some time. After her 2013 independent film of the same name premiered at Sundance, she began developing how it would work as a longer story, one that explored the full ramifications of what happens when a teacher (Kate Mara) crosses the line with one of her students (Nick Robinson). The result, which just debuted on FX on Hulu, is a gripping look at a fundamentally abusive relationship, one which the show doesn't shy away from exploring in all its complications.

Below, Fidell takes us through the adaptation process, what she learned by directing episodes of Casual and The Act while developing the series, what went into casting her leads, and how she approached the depiction of grooming in the context of the show. She also explains why Jason Bateman is an executive producer on the series, and how her biggest triumph in making the show might have been its soundtrack.

Collider: A Teacher is based on your feature film — talk to me about what happened in between making the film and then moving forward with this show?

HANNAH FIDELL: Yeah. Many years happened in between. I made the film in 2012, a very small, independent film made with friends and it was a shock that it, well, it was my first film, but it also was a shock that it got the attention that it did.

Immediately after Sundance, where the film premiered, Michael Costigan, who's an executive producer on the show and has really been my partner from the start and turning it into a TV show. We had a meeting and he said, well, "I want to know what happens afterwards, after the movie ends."

And so that was sort of the genesis of what the show would eventually become. But we originally sold it to HBO where I think, I don't quite know what went down, but I'm just so glad that it ended up at FX

For me, and this might sound implausible, but I had to sort of separate the film — I look at the film and it was a totally different project. Even though obviously they share similar themes, I don't see it as a continuation. To me it's different characters, it's different motivations. Yes, the name is the same but it's really given the space and the budget to create a much fuller picture of how these relationships began and what the consequences are and to show both abuser and victim, which I just couldn't do in the film because of the sort of budgetary constraints of a $100,000, very tiny indie film.

In between 2012 and making this show, you got the opportunity to direct on a couple of other shows. What was the experience like, going into someone else's show and getting a taste of it — and how did you apply that to what you're doing here?

FIDELL: Yeah, I love working on other people's shows. I find the act of writing to be difficult, so to be able to already have a script, is like, the ideal scenario for me. I was able to go on to see how other creators who are running them, really learned a lot from them, and I was lucky enough to work on shows where I really was able to collaborate with the creators. It was just sort of a holistic education as to how to write and direct and run the show — I can't imagine having not had that experience. It was invaluable.

Absolutely. Just a quick random thing — Jason Bateman's name is on this as an executive producer, and I'm guessing it's because his production company was involved?

FIDELL: That is exactly his involvement. He was sort of grandfathered in because Michael Costigan, the original executive producer, joined up with him to run his company. So just through that process, Jason became involved. But I'm a huge fan of his and he said only nothing but kind words about the show, so.

Talking about the actual show, one place I want to start is that the episodes all now begin with a content warning about grooming. The term grooming is something that we're hearing a lot more about lately, but right now, how much do you think the general public understands about the concept?

FIDELL: Well, I hope that this show honestly creates a dialogue around it, because I don't think there's a general awareness of it unless you've had maybe direct experience with sexual trauma in any way. But I think this leads into a larger thing about the show. The hope, and the intent while writing it, was that we wanted the audience to go along for the ride with Eric, so that they're experiencing the entire pattern of abuse in the same way that he does — which is, at first, he doesn't understand. He's enraptured by it. He doesn't understand what's happening. He doesn't understand that she is completely doing something wrong. I don't know if complicit is the right word, but it was important to me that the audience was on the same journey as Eric, emotionally.

Yeah, I actually did a little Googling about what are clear signs of grooming, because I was trying to break down examples of grooming in the show. And it still took me time to process the ways in which she has power over him.

FIDELL: Totally. I was really fascinated too with how on paper, these things might not seem wrong but as a whole, they add up to a real false sense of companionship and a deeper connection. It's such a crazy thing, but to Eric at that moment, it's like, wow, here's this person that's like totally interested and invested in me — someone I look up to and is in a position of authority. So it adds a false sense of self to him as well. There's a surprising amount of emotional landscape and territory to mine with the subject matter.

Talk a little bit about finding Kate and Nick, because digging into that material with them, I feel, is such a major part of making this work.

FIDELL: Yeah. Well, when we took the show back out and pitched it to FX, we attached Kate at that point. She's an executive producer on the show and she was very much a hands-on producer — instead of some actors just get little credit because that's part of the deal that's worked out. She really took that seriously in a way that I love, because I love writing for specific people. It just helps the end results feel that much more natural, which was important to this story.

But also I think it's a very difficult role and there are only, I think, a few people who can pull that off and also be as fearless in their performance. Because to me, what separates an okay actor from a great actor like Kate, is that she's willing to not be likable and she's willing to go there. I think a lot of people play it safe.

Lindsay Berge in the film was also that way, where she was able to just inhabit this sort of darkness. But again, like I mentioned earlier, I see the characters as having actually separate motivations.

With Nick, Kate and I took him out to lunch and he immediately just exuded exactly what I thought of when I thought of Eric, because he's actually quite shy and he's down to earth. He wants to please in exactly the same way that I think Eric does. So it was just a no-brainer.

I was going to say, it feels weird to ask if you can do a conventional chemistry read for this.

FIDELL: No. And in fact, I don't even know if we had Nick read with Kate. I don't think we did, but it was very clear during our lunch that they would work. And what's so great, for me, is being able to collaborate with people at the script stage. Having both of them cast when we were in the writers' room was just invaluable.

There are some really interesting music choices throughout the season — were you just coming up with a playlist? Were there things that you wanted to get that you couldn't get for whatever reason?

FIDELL: I always start with a playlist. Even before, I think week one, I asked the writers: "Bring in songs that sort of reminds you of this time period." I think we even spent maybe like a few hours creating a playlist in the room, and a lot of those songs ended up in the show.

So to me, music is just so evocative of time. It's an emotion. And I worked very closely with the music supervisors, who I've worked with before on several projects. I think it took perhaps a little while for FX to realize that this was, as they call it, a music show. I'd say one of my greatest feats of the whole process was getting them to let me use the music that we did.

To wrap up, what does it mean to you to have this opportunity for FX, as an auteur working in television, and really dig into making the show on your terms?

FIDELL: It's meant everything. And I think very few places would have allowed for such autonomy. And because FX in particular is so creator-driven and really value the people that they hire to create shows for them, it wasn't like... I mean at the end of the day, yes, they were my boss. But, I really felt like we were co-creators in this. That they were as invested in not only the show, but in bringing up new voices.

I know that they had a mandate of bringing more female-led shows to the network. And I congratulate them on that because that's how change and progress happens. In terms of feeling, I told them this a million times, but there's nothing quite like someone handing you the reins to something as major as a television show and saying, we trust you.

And that in itself is like, I've never felt so, sort of, professionally rewarded, especially with a show as complicated as this one is. I'm not sure another network would have had the guts to tackle this sort of subject matter, which I'm glad they did because I just hope as they do that, this will create a real national dialogue about this form of abuse, which has no sort of overseeing body tracking the numbers.

I can tell you from my Google searches, I still get alerts for every day that it just happens so often, I just think about all the cases out there that were never caught. And so I hope that it brings up a conversation about grooming and about the sort of double standard of abuse.

New episodes of A Teacher premiere Tuesdays on FX on Hulu.