LOS ANGELES — For actress and director Bryce Dallas Howard her dad is also her hero. So it’s fitting that her feature film directorial debut is called “Dads” –  she calls it her gift to dads everywhere.

“My dad was and is such a good dad,” Bryce Dallas Howard said. “I was going to say it’s all he cares about but he cares about movies as well.”

He may care about movies, but her father, filmmaker Ron Howard was reluctant to be in this one.

“He felt it would be really obnoxious for a girl to be like I just made a movie about my dad! And he’s also a producer,” Howard joked.

But as shooting started, they found out her brother and his wife were expecting their first baby, so eventually her brother and her father became part of the film too.

In the documentary she shows what fatherhood is like through the eyes of her father and brother and also several other fathers, including some famous comedians and actors.

And she had plenty of praise for her husband too, who’s parenting skills she’s constantly in awe of, she said.

“I will never forget the moment that my son was born, my husband took Theo and he took off his own shirt so he could be skin to skin and he was whispering in his ear and I heard him and he was saying again and again anything is possible,” Howard said.

With this film she wants to tell fathers everywhere that it’s not always easy. 

“We live on a planet where a dad’s role as a parent is not valued nearly as much as the mother’s role as a parent,” Howard said.

But the role they play in a child’s life can help shape them forever, she said. The film may be a reflection for the love she has for her own father, but really it’s a love letter to all dads.

“I feel very, very, very fortunate and I think my self-esteem is quite good in part because of that,” Howard said.