In preparing for her latest movie International Velvet (1978), young actress Tatum O'Neal had several acting challenges. O'Neal talks about the first herself, namely playing a naive young girl, while she herself has had much life experience and gained experience in the technical aspects in preparation for the movie. The movie's director Bryan Forbes talks about the second, namely O'Neal's character needing to span the years aged twelve to eighteen, a remarkable challenge because of the extreme differences over those years from child to young adult. And Forbes and several of the movie's equestrian consultants - including equestrian coach Marcia Williams, President William C. Steinkraus of the US Equestrian Team, and former competitive equestrian Richard Meade - talk about the third and perhaps most difficult, namely portraying an Olympic caliber equestrian having had little training before being cast in the movie. By all these accounts, O'Neal rises to all these challenges beautifully.