Maysville

Writing, for me, is like letting someone see you naked. They can see all your imperfections, and things you try so desperately to hide about yourself. For many years, I called myself a closet writer, scared to share my stories with anyone for fear of being judged, so you can only imagine the courage it took to not only share the Maysville script for the first time, but to make a feature film out of it! But it was the right time in my life. Something about getting old…you start to not give a damn what others think. Oh, the power in age! It’s my story, and it’s ok for someone to love it, or hate it. That’s the beauty of art!
When approaching the story of Maysville, one thing that resonated within me was to shine a spotlight on Appalachia, as it is so dear to me, and make sure that I honor its people and show them in a light that focuses on the passion they hold, and not portray them as a stereotype. These are the people I grew up with, and I know them to be strong willed, faithful, and determined.  I wanted to tell a story with reflections of my own childhood, mixed with people I have known and places I have lived, cast into a fictional story with rich, full and fierce characters.
 In my early childhood, I lived in a very remote region of Kentucky, Furnace Mountain, where families live close to one another, generation after generation. After an untraditional divorce, my mother moved herself and her children from the remote mountain life, to the small town of Mt.Sterling, Kentucky - where I grew up and finished school. Along the way, I was influenced by so many rich characters, and they found their way onto the pages of the script.
As a first-time director, I wanted my film to be emotional, faster paced, and void of long stretches with little to no dialogue. I drew on the films from my childhood, and the directors I grew up admiring; wanting to tell a story like Ron Howard, Stephen Spielberg , Joe Dante and Rob Reiner. I needed the story to be the star of the film, not anything I had done behind the camera. Working with the actors proved to be more fun than I had imagined, as I was able to share with them some of the experiences and stories from growing up in that part of the country. It allowed them to get accounts and emotions to draw from, as opposed to creating them on their own.
This entire experience has proven to be one of the scariest and most rewarding adventures of my life. Telling stories is the greatest gift I could ever have been given, and I only hope this is the first of many I will share with you on film.
-Leslie Goyette