It's her first film since 1999's "Boys Don't Cry." It's release date on Friday is especially timely with the Iraq war at the five-year milestone this month and the death toll of U.S. soldiers reaching at least 4,000 this week. Her movie is about the soldiers who are forced into additional tours of duty and the toll the war is taking on their lives back home.

Q. Why did you wait almost 10 years to do another film?
A. “I was looking for something that really moved me and broke my heart and spoke to me in the deepest possible way. “Boys” was a dream come true, it is something that I will think about my entire life - it was about gender, sexuality, my friends, myself, my family. Once you have an experience that satisfying, that’s what you want to put your whole life towards. When 9-11 happened and I saw the towers fall - I had been living there 13 years - and my country went to war, I knew I needed to make a movie about the soldiers: who they were, why they were signing up, what their experience in combat was and upon coming home. Not long after that, my baby brother signed up so we were a military family. We had a gandfather fight in WWII and we were deep in it. I can’t think of anything that I would be prouder to have made in these last couple of years. I was just so excited to be able to talk to the real soldiers. I love to do things that I both have a sense of, but that I come to understand better and I now understand our soldiers and the experiences they’ve had fighting, what comraderie means to them and what it means for them to come home and I want everybody to understand that. It’s the most important issue I see facing our country.”

Q. How do you think the movie will be received?
A. “I’ve been to 22 cities in America and people are loving the movie and I think the reason is, look at the cast: it’s all young guys who are totally reflective of real soldiers - they studied with real Iraq vets, they studied with Marines - they’re just a young group of good looking charismatic guys. They’re a lot like the American soldiers that I interviewed.”

Q. How was it working with Ryan Phillippe?
A. “Ryan was fantastic. He came in, he had that gorgeous deep voice, he’s got that cleft chin. He’s just that all-American boy. In addition to being good looking, he;s also just incredibly mature and incredibly sensitive. He’s a great father and I think he brings that into the role because he’s the brother of the guys but he’s also really the father of the guys. That’s really what the movie’s about - the comraderie between soldiers when they’re over there in combat. All that matters is keeping alive the soldier to your left, the soldier to your right and bringing them home.”