by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Imagine you’re a rookie film director, you land Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson with her unmistakable New Orleans guile plus a very fine cast including actor Thomas Sadoski for a movie about one of America’s unsung, true-life, gutsy working women? Director Rachel Feldman did just that. But there’s a caveat here… it only took 17 years. 
Feldman had been coming up in the ranks as a TV helmer for years. From directing episodes of Lizzy McGuire to Blue Bloods to Criminal Minds. Count them up: 25 director credits in television, 11 writer credits. Better yet, let IMDb do the work, as you click here for her complete bio. Forgive the background shortcut. We’re here to chat with Feldman about the subject of her first-ever movie, LILLY. (Yes, there's an official trailer on Vimeo, linked at the end of our interview.)
So let’s get started because Rachel has a lot to share, and the film is available for you in just days from now on Netflix.
QUENDRITH JOHNSON: Can you describe LILLY for people who may not be familiar with her?
RACHEL FELDMAN: Lilly Ledbetter worked for the Goodyear Tire company in Gadsden, Alabama from 1979 – 1999, from the ages of 40-60, as a supervisor. Having been raised in poverty, her American dream was to see her children grow up in the middle class, and for that singular goal, for nearly 20 years, she was willing to work in an extremely hostile work environment, for the sake of the best paycheck in her county. But as retirement approached, she discovered that she was actually being paid nearly half of what the men with the same job were earning, and the rage that rose inside of her, from being cheated just because of her sex, transformed her into an activist who fought for the next ten years and changed an American law.
QUENDRITH JOHNSON: What made you put this movie together, and how long did it take to get to the screen?
RACHEL FELDMAN: Coming up when I did as a woman director in Hollywood, I experienced my own form of gender discrimination in the form of exclusion. When I landed in Hollywood, with an MFA in directing and several award-winning, grant-funded short films, only .05% of the film and television was being directed by women. So, when I saw Lilly Ledbetter speak at the 2008 DNC, I knew I was the filmmaker to tell her story. It’s 17 years since I was first inspired to make this film. The production had several incarnations, and a few stops and starts, but I had promised Lilly that I’d get it made, and I never lost that North Star.
Watch Rachel Feldman’s TedX talk about women who direct…
QUENDRITH JOHNSON: How did you get to Patricia Clarkson?
RACHEL FELDMAN: As a non-celebrity filmmaker, with no representation, and no budget for a top casting director, I realized that access to the kind of actor I needed for this role was going to be a challenge. I got very lucky when a very beloved actor found about my script and offered to