Jennifer Lawrence immediately knew first-time movie director Lila Neugebauer was the “right person” to helm Causeway when they met for dinner.

The drama, which is Lawrence’s first movie project for her production company Excellent Cadaver, marks the theatre director’s first foray into feature filmmaking.

When Lawrence and Neugebauer met to discuss the script, their visions were so aligned that the actress wasn’t too concerned that Neugebauer hadn’t directed a movie before.

“We were just completely on the same page creatively and aesthetically,” Lawrence told U.S. Vogue magazine. “I knew that she was the right person for it, regardless of her being a first-time film director. I felt like whatever obstacles come with that are worth it for her insight and instincts.”

Neugebauer came away from the dinner feeling confident that she had found the perfect partner to make the project with.

“The feeling for me was not just that I can do this with this person, but I sort of have to,” she added. “There are no games. There’s no fortress. She’s present and she’s in it with you and she’s game, as a person at a dinner table and a person on a set. That’s who she is, and it’s apparent immediately.”

In Causeway, Lawrence plays a soldier who suffers a traumatic brain injury while deployed in Afghanistan and struggles to adjust to life back home. She forms a friendship with a mechanic named James, played by Brian Tyree Henry.

The Bullet Train actor “absolutely jumped on” the script when he received it because he knew Neugebauer from their student days at Yale and was keen to be part of her directorial debut.

Causeway will be released on Apple TV+ in November.

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