The aftermath of a school shooting — that’s the focus of the new teen drama The Fallout that debuts today on HBO Max.

It was written and directed by actress Megan Park, in her first time behind the camera, and she talked to ABC Audio about her goal to move the needle” by showing “the after effects of what these kids are going to live with for the rest of their lives and maybe a different side of the story that we hadn’t seen before.”

Adds the 35-year-old actress, “I feel like obviously making a film about this subject matter is very tricky, and I didn’t want it to be, you know, this kind of political statement.”

Park didn’t have a personal connection to a school shooting, but says she did a lot of research to make it feel as authentic as possible.

“I spoke to both the survivor of a school shooting and also a mother whose daughter had been through a school shooting and survived,” the Secret Life of the American Teenager alum explains. “And then I spoke with some organizations about how to kind of tackle…gun violence and stuff in a way that isn’t triggering to people who had been through something like this.”

“I even just had somebody send me a DM on Instagram and they said, you know, I went through a school shooting and I so appreciated like, it was really hard, but there were times when we would laugh, you know, a few weeks after it happened, but then feel weird about even laughing, ” she continues,” adding, “there is no right or wrong way to deal with something like this.”  

The Fallout stars Jenna Ortega, Maddie Ziegler, Shailene Woodley and Julie Bowen.