Lawrence Michael Levine felt like he was putting Aubrey Plaza "through some emotional torture" in 'Black Bear'.

The writer and director behind the dark comedy sees filmmaker Alison (Plaza) escaping to a secluded lake house where she stays with Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and Blair (Sarah Gadon), and he's opened up on the tough process on set and the actresses leading performance.

He told HeyUGuys: "Really, one of the biggest thrills of my life - and I imagine other dramatic writers as well - is seeing their work performed at the highest level.

"So, it's actually a thrill. It was fun and exciting. It was a little hard because at times I felt like I was putting people - and her in particular - through some emotional torture, which was kind of odd.

"But you just need to remind yourself, you're making a movie and that's the jobs she signed up for.

"It's your job to help her get where she needs to be, and her performance comes off. But it was exciting, it was riveting and there was so much of it that people don't even know about that's on the cutting room floor."

One challenge for the cast and crew was the limited time to actually shoot the movie, while the nighttime setting also caused some issues.

Levine explained: "I was so busy during the shoot and so anxious - it was a really difficult shoot, we didn't have a lot of time.

"The original schedule was 18, and then just from b******* and moaning, I got another two.

"I think it ended up being 20 days, and they were not long days either because everything's at night... We had eight hours of darkness and that's all the time we had to shoot."