Writer-director Rolf de Heer said of this film: "I'm really interested in the way children think, and I have quite strong memories of childhood and how I thought" explained de Heer. "I do remember quite strongly feeling that adults underestimate the way children think and that I must never forget that, so that when I became an adult I wouldn't make the same mistake."
Colors are quite important in this movie. The girl feels empty, alone, when she's surrounded, and so is dressed in blue. Whenever people are happy, they're red. At the end of the film, when the girl starts talking, she suddenly wears a very red sweater, instead of her usual blue clothes.
'The Quiet Room' gives voice to the child's thoughts, revealing an interior life full of questioning, observing, and reasoning, colored by a palette of emotions. "Thought processes in kids are much more sophisticated and complex than what we often give them credit for," writer-director Rolf de Heer believes. "I wanted to give kids credit for who they are, really."
Director Rolf de Heer was thrilled with then seven year old Chloe Ferguson's performance. "Every day, I was amazed and surprised and thought her wondrous." De Heer was also pleased that the experience hasn't left her stage struck. "At the end of it, she said, 'yeah, okay, that's all right, but I don't think I want to be an actor. It was fun doing it, but too much of it is too boring."
Rolf de Heer, the film's director, was delighted with the lead non-child actors Celine O'Leary and Paul Blackwell. "They were fantastic. Chloe [Ferguson] would not have been half as good as she was without what was, in a sense, a really selfless effort by the two adult actors off-set as well as on-set."