Director Aneesh Chaganty and star Kiera Allen made a boundary-breaking thriller in ‘Run’

In the new movie “Run,” now streaming on Hulu, Sarah Paulson plays Diane, a very dedicated mother who homeschools her daughter Chloe, a senior in high school. Chloe uses a wheelchair and has faced multiple health issues since birth.

Played by Kiera Allen, super-smart Chloe hopes to go to college and has started to think about how dependent she is on her mom. When Chloe asks for an iPhone, and perhaps some more independence, conflicts begin. As she fights to break free from her mom, Chloe resorts to desperate measures, leading to nail-biting action scenes.

In spite — or because of — the physical demands of the role, director Aneesh Chaganty was determined to put an actress who really uses a wheelchair in the part.

Chaganty and Allen talk about the process of making “Run,” the first thriller to star an actor who uses a wheelchair since the 1940s. Hulu says the film is its most-watched ever on an opening weekend.

Chaganty talked to The Business in 2018 about his first film “Searching,” a drama that starred John Cho as a dad desperate to find his missing daughter. In that movie, the action played out entirely through text messages, emails and computer video chats. Chaganty says it was in the arduous process of editing that movie that he first thought about “Run.”