We've all heard the old Hollywood fable. One day you're just standing there minding your own business when somebody "discovers" you and the next thing you know you're a star. But that doesn't really happen, does it? It does if you're Sasha Lane, the Texas-born young woman who was hand-picked by director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank) to lead her sprawling road movie American Honey. On a fortuitous spring break, Lane was sitting on the shores of a Flordia beach when Arnold approached her with the offer. Lane will tell you she knew something was coming, but she never could have guessed it would be the starring role in award-winning film.

American Honey is a gorgeous, unapologetically anarchic film that clocks in at a near three hours without ever feeling static, and it all rests on Lane's shoulders as Star, a young woman who leaps at the opportunity to abandon her stagnant life when a charismatic huckster (Shia LaBeouf) offers her the opportunity to hit the road in pursuit of some hard-earned cash. Packed into a van with similarly disenfranchised young folks, Star drinks, dances, cavorts and tastes manic love as she makes her way across the great U.S. with her like-minded crew. And to make the film, Arnold really did pack a van full of the rag-tag bunch, comprised of mostly similarly hand-picked unknowns, setting the filmmakers on a parallel adventure.

Sitting across from Lane in an Alamo Drafthouse karaoke room at the 2016 Fantastic Fest, it's all too easy to see why Arnold found her such a compelling figure to lead her brazen, tender-hearted narrative. But you don't have to meet the young actress to get it -- it's evident from the film's first moments that Lane has an almost preternatural ability for commanding the screen. Which is perhaps why it was so surprising to find her a soft-spoken, unassuming woman who answered any question with a refreshing openness and honesty. It's a brilliant, beautiful movie and resulted in a wide-ranging interview that stands as one of my favorite I've done in a while. Check it out below.

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Image via A24

How are you doing today?

SASHA LANE: To be honest, really emotional.

Oh, really?

LANE: Yeah! I think just because I’m back in Texas and I’m just looking at a poster of myself, and there’s just so much love and I’m just thinking where I was a year and a half ago and it’s like, “Wow, man!” It’s a lot.

I get that. You’re basically living the “Hollywood discovery” story that people think doesn’t really happen.

LANE: Yeah, exactly! And I never thought –I mean, I had a feeling that something was going to happen and that’s why this is even more emotional for me, but I never thought like this, I never thought so quickly. I’m just overwhelmed with everything.

It’s an amazing movie.

LANE: Thank you.

To be honest, I was like, “Ok, it’s the second day of Fantastic Fest, after the opening night, I have an 8 A.M. screening of this 3-hour movie. What was I thinking?”

LANE: I can’t even imagine how –Yeah, it sounds awful.

But, at a certain point I go, “Oh my God, this movie is going to end soon.” And I felt really sad.

LANE: Aww, that’s cool. I know it sounds long, but once you’re in it –It’s just how life seems, “Wow a year sounds really long”, but all of the sudden you’re in life and it’s just like. “What? We did that a year ago?” It’s crazy.

It’s a beautiful movie, and it’s impressive too that it flies like that because in so many movies there’s this constant inundation of explosions, destruction of buildings, and that’s all kind of boring. But just watching human beings being human is enchanting.

LANE: Exactly. I have such love to the point of obsessions of people and their minds, and I’m constantly trying to find the beauty in things and I think people are such unique and complex creatures. And such beautiful people, even the most evil of them all, you’re just like, “There’s something in you and I know it’s there and I know there’s other reasons of why you are this way.” That’s why I think I’m so in love with this movie itself, because you get to see all that beauty amongst all of the crazy and whatever. There’s so many different things, so it’s nice when other people connect in that way too.

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Imaga via A24

I also thought it was really beautiful that there wasn’t some moralistic overtone to what these kid are doing. There wasn’t this idea that being promiscuous has to be punished, and even in the darker moments people weren’t inherently evil to her in any way. I kept going like, ‘Oh God, is he going to beat her up?” and it didn’t happen.

LANE: Yeah. Even me, knowing that this person isn’t going to harm me, it still made me feel bad because I don’t think like that but I was like, “Uhh.” And because of life and because of life in movies it’s like, “Of course. You’re about to get snatched up, this is gonna happen…” but it turns out to be someone asking me about dreams that no one’s ever asked me before and it’s like, “Wow, man. Thank you.”

Yeah. People aren’t always terrible, which is really easy to forget. So, I understand she found you on the beach. But I’m curious where you went from there, from meeting each other on the beach to making a movie.

LANE: I mean, I met her like a month and a half before we started filming. So as soon as I got done meeting her and we decided we were gonna do it, I went back to college and I had to push up my exams up early. So then I finished that and went straight to Oklahoma and started filming, it wasn’t like a big in-between moment.

Did you read with anybody first?

LANE: I did some improv with two other people from the movie. I met them and we kind of hung out and also did a little improv, but the rest of it was a lot of just conversations between me and her, a lot of personal conversations that I think really made us feel each other out and connect, and that’s why it felt right to do this.

What did you think when a stranger came up on the beach and said, “You should be the star of the movie”?

LANE: I was like, [sarcastic] “Ok. Yeah. Sure. Bring me in. What are we doing?” But it’s weird because I think Andrea was in a cowboy hat and overalls, so you can’t help but think, “Cutie” and then everyone she was with, their smiles, their energy, nothing about it felt evil, nothing about it felt vindictive. I felt very like –Something in me was like, “Just listen.” And then my friends were next to me and they were googling and it was adding up, so it was just like whatever. I mean, I didn’t expect her to come to my hotel but she did, and then she asked me to stay longer and it just worked out. I felt I had so much different energies in me and it felt like, “Keep doing it. Don’t let your fear stop you. Just go for it.”

Right. It would be easy to just be like, “No, that’s crazy.”

LANE: Yeah like, “Mmm, I think I’m gonna stay where I’m at.” But I was at a point in life where I was like, “Do you want to stay where you’re at? I don’t think so. Let’s hop in the car.”

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Image via A24

I’m curious about the filming process as well because it is such a journey from all of those places and you guys sort of journeyed together in real life. Can you talk about what that experience was like for you?

LANE: I never felt more free than while I was doing it or now because I have that experience with me. I’m used to road trips and living however, but we really formed this bond cast, crew, all of us. The fact that we were living in these motels and we were packing up and dipping out in a van going to different cities and just connecting and seeing this world and the open skies and just hanging out in parking lots. There’s no greater feeling. It was exhausting but it was the most exhilarating thing ever, you’re so free and you’re so right in this bubble, there’s was nothing, I had no other outside factors. I disappeared all of that and was just in this world with everyone and you just got to live, oh my gosh, it was like my soul was craving that. It was just a great experience.

That’s interesting because that’s kind of how I felt watching it, ‘Oh my soul was craving a story like this.” You know, we’re all so embedded in ambition and work and it’s like, “Oh yeah, people can just live.”

LANE: Yeah, and people are good just how they are. They don’t have to fit in a certain way, it doesn’t have to be this way, everything doesn’t have to be exactly how people are used or what it should be. Very much like, “Yeah dude, we’re experiencing life just as you are” and the way that she made it so intimate and so personal I think is so cool because you really kind of get to be in the van with us and get to be in all these different situations whether it’s scary or not. No matter what you’re in it, and I like that theme incrusted into it.

Was it hard for you guys when it ended?

LANE: Yeah. I think we were all a little like, “Whoa”. Especially me, and that’s why I latched on to Riley [Keough] so hard, I think –She knows this is what happens in movies, I didn’t know that. I was like, “What do you mean we go separate?” I felt like a traitor trying to do something else without Andrea. I was like, “This is my family, I constantly want to be around them. I wanna wake up and hear them outside my hotel room. I wanna be able to walk outside and sit on a step and say ‘what’s up’.” It was really, really hard but I’m happy we kept in touch and we’re still so close, so it feels good. At least I’m like, “Ok, don’t leave me.” [Laughs].

Has it been fun seeing them on the festivals?

LANE: Yeah! Because I get so nervous, but as soon as I get around them I’m like, “Ahhh” It’s a lot of fun wherever we go so it’s cool, it’s always a party with American Honey.

I love that. Makes for a great slogan. Was there a day or a moment or a scene that you felt like you didn’t know what to do because this is your first film, or did you feel like an intuitive direction throughout it?

LANE: Most of them I think you could feel them out. There was a weird one, a scene where I was supposed to get mad after like the whole “devil’s got a hold of you daughters” thing, like getting mad at Shia. And it’s weird because I don’t hold grudges, I try not to go there and it takes a lot to get me mad, and so I didn’t want it to feel fake and I felt like, “Ok, I’m not really mad.” I don’t know, it wasn’t building in me, and so that’s when I was like, “Whoa, can you go there without feeling like a phony?” But it’s cool that like nothing can piss me off on purpose which is nice. So I was like, ‘Alright, we can find ways. You can do it, you can go about it. Stop being so…” – I think I became more aware of the camera and the fact that I was doing a movie at that time, because I was like, “No, I’m not actually mad. I don’t wanna go there.” But I was like, “Be in it.”

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Image via A24

It’s also a really interesting perspective on poverty, in a time when right now in our country it’s a very volatile subject that needs to be humanized. Was that an appealing factor to you or is that and important narrative for you?

LANE: Definitely, because I think so many people are so surprised of this side of America and it’s blowing my mind, I’m like, “What do you mean? Am I surprised about this part? This is what I grew up in, this is what I know. The only reason that you don’t see it is because you choose to overlook it and you refuse to acknowledge it. You see us as these discard kids, these kids who are just partying doing whatever, and it’s like, ‘Dude what else do you think we have to do when you don’t give us the opportunities?’ You don’t let the sky be the limit for us, you let the top of that tree be our limit.” There’s not a lot of opportunities. And I’m sorry, but the reason these kids are going around selling magazines –You’re not buying magazines, you’re buying them because they have no other way to fend for themselves and that’s why they’re off on a fricking van with strangers and in these crazy situations, because you have created a world where they can’t thrive. And yeah, I’m so happy that it’s out there and it almost angers me a little bit and kind of like gets me when people are like, “I never knew this side” and I’m like, “What the fuck are you looking at then?” You gotta stop just glazing over your eyes, it is right in front of you.

It is. It’s an unfortunate time in media and representation for the “underprivileged” and I sort of feel like people either want to villains it or pretend like it doesn’t exist.

LANE: Yeah! And I’m sorry, I know America is supposed to be the land of the dreams and hopes but it’s like, when was that actually a real thing? I think from the very beginning it was all a lie and it still kind of is, stop trying to sell the picket fence, because there’s another backyard here that you haven’t looked at.

Absolutely. And it’s also wonderful that the movie shows beauty in it.

LANE: Exactly! There is so much that’s wrong with it but it’s also like, just because we are living this way and that things are rough doesn’t mean that we don’t love ourselves and love our lives. So many of them, even just the people from this movie, are like, “No, I’m cool. I’m going back to my little thing and I’m doing what I do and this is what I know and this is what I enjoy.” Some people want more and some people are like, “I’m good with this. I have family, I have people who love me, I like to sit out on my little step and drink my beer all day. I’m good.” People are living life and I think that’s the beauty of these type of places in poverty. When you have nothing else as far as making money, money, money, what you have is each other, what you have is your neighbor who is like, “I have a six-pack, do you want to just like chill and talk about life?” or “We made more food, here you go, feed the community.” There’s so much love and there’s so much beauty and light in that world. And I think that’s another thing that the movie is about, just constantly looking for beauty in life and people and in situations, no matter what.

And it’s people aren’t good or bad, normally.

LANE: Yeah. It’s complicated, it’s so complicated.

I think Shia’s character demonstrates that so well, he’s volatile, violent, but also lovely.

LANE: Exactly. And people are like, “He’s mean, I hate him” and I’m like, “Is he mean or is he complicated? And is Riley just a bitch and a cold-hearted person or is she broken and sad and maybe a little jealous.” There are so many things, every character is so complex because people really are complex in real life. It’s like in all other movies or people they see things as you just have to be one person, one thing, and this situation is just this situation, and it’s not. There’s a 360, and there’s so much more and that’s why I’m so captivated by all of it and Andrea’s vision was what really made me.

This is a very intimate movie. Was that challenging for you, coming into that emotional intimacy, sexual intimacy sort of blind as an actress?

LANE: I think things like the scene with my dad. That was a very hard thing because while I think expressing your emotions and who you are is very beautiful, I think being vulnerable is very beautiful. And I’m always advocating that, but still no matter what for myself I’m like, “Don’t you dare shed that tear. Don’t you dare show that emotion. Don’t you let someone get that part of you.” And I had to because it was not only personal, it was also representing so many other people, so I just had to be like, “Sasha you can’t think about your fears and how you go about things, you have to let it go. That way you can connect to people and let them experience it.” Because they need to feel that and know that someone else feels that and feels something authentic. So I had to just let it go and do it.

It’s really beautiful. I’m gonna run out of time with you, so tell me, what comes next for you?

LANE: With that one what I say is, who fricking knows? I kind of have something in mind but I just don’t know what’s gonna –You never know what can happen next. So I’m floating and I’m letting it kind of come and taking it as it goes.

Have you done any new films already?

LANE: Right now I just got done wrapping a short. Right now there’s stuff in the works but I’m kind of focused on promoting this right now. My heart’s pretty much in this right now.