How director Destin Daniel Cretton built Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle on the big screen

Writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton only had two feature-length films under his belt before he was tapped to steer a big-screen adaptation of Jeannette Walls' best-selling memoir, The Glass Castle.

But the film —  boasting Oscar-winner Brie Larson and Oscar-nominees Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts — isn't the work of a novice. Cretton found surprising parallels between Walls' life and his own, which helped his confident direction of Walls' memoir of childhood poverty, alcoholism and making one's way in the world.

Walls describes growing up literally dirt-poor in a household full of love and creativity but also marred by crime and abuse. When the book was released in 2005 it became an instant classic, spending 382 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

More than 10 years later, Walls' story has finally come to the big screen. Cretton talks to q about the process of adapting and directing The Glass Castle.

— Produced by Ashley Mak