Laura Dern reveals how sexual harassment experience informed her role in HBO's 'The Tale'

Patrick Ryan | USA TODAY

When filmmaker Jennifer Fox was 13, she wrote a story for English class about a young girl who is coerced into a sexual relationship with her 40-year-old running coach.

Little did her teacher know, the story was true.

"I got an A," says Fox, now 58. "My teacher wrote on the back, 'If this is true, it's a travesty. But since you're so well-adjusted, it can't be.' "

Four decades later, Fox has adapted her account into a harrowing feature film, The Tale, which premieres on HBO Saturday (10 ET/PT). Two-time Oscar nominee Laura Dern plays an adult Jennifer — a successful documentarian and professor — as she confronts the truth that her childhood "romance" with Bill (Jason Ritter) was sexual abuse. With the support of her mother (Ellen Burstyn) and boyfriend (Common), she reconnects with people from her past in an effort to remember what happened after years of suppression.

"The film is about memory and the stories we tell ourselves to survive," says Dern, 51, who was brought the script by director Brian De Palma, Fox's friend and mentor. "I think we all find that relatable, not just people who have experienced sexual abuse or assault."

Dern identifies with Fox's story, having grown up as a teen actress on movie sets, where she experienced sexual harassment. She says she never recognized it for what it was until the Me Too movement started last fall, as women and men came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct and abuses of power.

"I didn't realize until recently that my experiences of harassment were harassment," Dern says. "For so many young girls and boys, behavior is justified because it's like, 'Well, they did that. Maybe that's normal.' We presume that's just the way it works in Hollywood."

Like her fictionalized character in The Tale, Fox didn't fully process her trauma until middle age, as she interviewed women around the world for her 2006 documentary Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman and began to hear similar stories. She's careful to make the distinction between sexual assault and abuse, when someone is manipulated into thinking "he or she is agreeing to something which is sexual, but it isn't often violent," Fox says. "It's different from rape."

The movie earned rave reviews (100% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) when it premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it also made headlines for its troubling depictions of sex between Bill and the teenage Jennifer (Isabelle Nélisse). Fox went to great lengths to ensure both actors felt safe and comfortable: A psychologist was on hand to evaluate them both, and Ritter filmed scenes with an adult body double in scenes where their characters are pressed together or kissing.

"(Isabelle) and I rehearsed totally non-sexual cues like, 'Act like a bee stung you' or 'Act like you cut your finger,' " Fox says. "We went through a jukebox of different cues that she could then act and just did a rotation of them."

Ultimately, Fox and Dern hope The Tale will empower more people to not only share their own experiences with sexual abuse, but speak up when they witness it happening to others.

Although the movie was shot nearly three years ago, its release amid high-profile scandals "has been incredible in getting the word out," Dern says. "People aren't afraid to see the film and say, 'Yup, that's my experience. Me Too.' It's been given a very different light because of this conversation."