Lucas Hedges

Lucas Hedges
File:Lucas Hedges 2017.png Hedges in 2017
Born	December 12, 1996 (1996-12-12) Brooklyn Heights, New York, U.S.
Education	University of North Carolina School of the Arts
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2007–present
Parent(s)	Peter Hedges (father)
Awards	Full List

Lucas Hedges (born December 12, 1996) is an American actor. Born to filmmaker Peter Hedges, he studied theater at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Hedges began his acting career with supporting roles in Wes Anderson's comedy-drama Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and the crime biopic Kill the Messenger (2014). He broke through in 2016 playing a sardonic teenager in Kenneth Lonergan's drama Manchester by the Sea, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and made him the eighth-youngest nominee in the category. Hedges then starred as an aggressive youth in an off-Broadway production of Yen and had supporting roles in the coming-of-age film Lady Bird and the drama film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2017.

In 2018, Hedges played lead roles as a teenager forced into a gay conversion therapy program in Boy Erased and as a drug addict in Ben Is Back, both drama films. The latter was written and directed by his father, and the former earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama. Hedges also made his Broadway debut in a revival of Lonergan's drama The Waverly Gallery.

Early life

Hedges was born in Brooklyn Heights, New York, the second of two boys born to poet and actress Susan Bruce (née Titman) and screenwriter and director Peter Hedges. His paternal grandfather, the Rev. Robert Boyden Hedges, was an Episcopal minister. His maternal grandfather was a former vice president in New York at HBO, and his maternal grandmother, Narcissa Titman, is a former theatre director and lecturer. He has an older brother, Simon, who works in private equity in New York. He grew up in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, frequently visiting his father's film sets. As a child, Hedges made his feature film debut as an extra in his father's film Dan in Real Life (2007), but his line in the film was cut in post-production.

A graduate of Saint Ann's School, he studied theatre at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from 2015 to 2016. Hedges is a graduate of the Cherubs Theatre Program at Northwestern University's National High School Institute.

Career

2012–2017: Early roles and breakthrough

File:Lucas Hedges (31914577576).jpg

Hedges at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival

During a middle-school play production, Hedges was spotted by the casting director for Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012), who eventually cast him in the film as Redford. He went on to play small roles in the comedy-drama Arthur Newman (2012), Jason Reitman's romance Labor Day (2013), and Terry Gilliam's science fiction film The Zero Theorem (2013). In 2014, Hedges had a minor role in Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel and played the son of Jeremy Renner's character in Michael Cuesta's drama Kill the Messenger, which was based on CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking. The latter led the critic Todd McCarthy to rank him as "very good," and Rodrigo Perez of IndieWire considered him to be the "surprise stand-out of the cast." In 2015, he was cast in the NBC miniseries The Slap, which was adapted from the Australian series of the same name.

Hedges next joined the cast of Kenneth Lonergan's independent drama Manchester by the Sea (2016). In it, he played Patrick Chandler, a 16-year-old boy dealing with the recent death of his father, who is left in the care of his unwilling and troubled uncle (played by Casey Affleck). The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph wrote, "Hedges, phenomenal, fights off every cliché of 'troubled' teenagerhood and gives us a gruff, sympathetic boy with a tearaway sex drive." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said his performance was "glorious" and added that he "makes a tremendous troubled 16-year-old." It earned over $78 million against its $9 million budget. For his work, Hedges won a Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer, and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, among others.

The following year, Hedges made his stage debut as the lead in the Trip Cullman-directed off-Broadway play Yen, penned by the playwright Anna Jordan. The production ran from February 19 to March 4 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. Taking note of his performance as an aggressive and violent teenager who shares a troubled relationship with his half-brother, Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote that he "delivers an expert anatomy of an adolescent on the edge of explosion". Hedges was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play and won the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Debut Performance. Also in 2017, Hedges had supporting roles in two films—Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird and Martin McDonagh's crime drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, both of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The cast of the latter film were awarded with the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast.

2018–present: Lead roles and Broadway debut

Hedges had three film releases in 2018. He played the supporting role of a teenager who violently bullies his younger brother (played by Sunny Suljic) in Mid90s, which marked the directorial debut of Jonah Hill. Eric Kohn of IndieWire wrote, "Hedges, quickly becoming the most impressive actor of his generation, buries himself in the gruff, unhappy role of an angst-riddled teen." Hedges played the lead role in his two other 2018 filmsTemplate:MdashBoy Erased and Ben Is Back. In the former, based on the eponymous memoir, he played the son of a Baptist pastor who is forced to take part in a gay conversion therapy program. Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman played his parents. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Stephen Farber noted that Hedges "carries the entire show and is alternately frightened, bewildered and defiant. There isn't a false note in his performance." For Boy Erased, Hedges received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama. In Ben Is Back, a drama directed by his father and co-starring Julia Roberts, he played the titular character, a drug addict who returns home after spending time in rehab. Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood praised both Roberts's and Hedges's performances, adding that they "are pitch perfect together, never striking a false note in demonstrating the everlasting bond between a mother and son."

Also in 2018, Hedges made his first appearance on Broadway in a revival of Kenneth Lonergan's play The Waverly Gallery, alongside Elaine May, Michael Cera and Joan Allen at the John Golden Theatre. He played the role of a teenager coping with his grandmother's Alzheimer's disease. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune credited him for effectively conveying the "frustration family members feel when one of their own starts to decline." Honey Boy, a drama penned by and co-starring Shia LaBeouf about his childhood and relationship with his father, marked Hedges's first film release of 2019. Hedges and Noah Jupe played Otis Lort, a character based on LaBeouf, at different ages. Reviewing the film for Entertainment Weekly, Leah Greenblatt wrote that Hedges "doesn’t seem to have found a role yet he can’t fully inhabit; his Otis is raw and furious, and genuinely funny." He next took on a supporting part in Trey Edward Shults' Waves, a drama about the emotional journey of a suburban family, which led Peter Debruge of Variety to consider it "an impactful reminder of how much the actor can bring to a smaller role".

In 2020, Hedges appeared in the miniseries Home Movie: The Princess Bride for Quibi to raise money for World Central Kitchen. Also that year, he starred alongside Michelle Pfeiffer in the comedy French Exit, and was part of the ensemble cast of Steven Soderbergh's comedy film Let Them All Talk. He will next appear in the FX anthology series The Premise.

Personal life

File:Lucas Hedges in New York, 2017 (cropped).jpg

Hedges in 2017

When asked about his sexuality in 2018, Hedges said: "In the early stages of my life, some of the people I was most infatuated with were my closest male friends. That was the case through high school, and I think I was always aware of that, while for the most part I was attracted to women," also adding that he exists "on that spectrum: Not totally straight, but also not gay and not necessarily bisexual." He later spoke about being an ally to the LGBTQ community and said that he considered his sexuality to be a "fluid experience."

He was in a relationship with actress Taylor Russell, whom he met while filming Waves, from 2018 to 2019.

Filmography

Film

Key

†	Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
2007	Dan in Real Life	Lilly's Dance Partner	Peter Hedges
2012	Moonrise Kingdom	Redford	Wes Anderson
	Arthur Newman	Kevin Avery	Dante Ariola
2013	Labor Day	Richard	Jason Reitman
	The Zero Theorem	Bob	Terry Gilliam
2014	The Grand Budapest Hotel	Pump Attendant	Wes Anderson
	Kill the Messenger	Ian Webb	Michael Cuesta
2015	Anesthesia	Greg	Tim Blake Nelson
2016	Manchester by the Sea	Patrick Chandler	Kenneth Lonergan
2017	Pigeonhearts	Eli	Grant Conversano	Short film
	Lady Bird	Danny O'Neill	Greta Gerwig
	Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri	Robbie Hayes	Martin McDonagh
2018	Boy Erased	Jared Eamons	Joel Edgerton
	Ben Is Back	Ben Burns	Peter Hedges
	Mid90s	Ian	Jonah Hill
2019	Honey Boy	Otis Lort	Alma Har'el
	Waves	Luke	Trey Edward Shults
2020	French Exit	Malcolm Price	Azazel Jacobs
	Let Them All Talk	Tyler Hughes	Steven Soderbergh
2022	Shirley		John Ridley

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2012	The Corrections	Young Chip Lambert	Unaired pilot
2015	The Slap	Ritchie Joanou (né Collins)	5 episodes
2020	Home Movie: The Princess Bride	Westley	Episode: "Chapter Six: The Fire Swamp"
2021	The Premise	Jesse Wheeler	Episode: "The Ballad of Jesse Wheeler"

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Theater	Notes
2017	Yen	Hench	Lucille Lortel Theatre
2018	The Waverly Gallery	Daniel Reed	John Golden Theatre
2020	This Is Our Youth	Warren Straub	—	Virtual play alongside Paul Mescal and Grace Van Patten

Music videos

Year	Title	Artist	Role	Notes
2019	"Never Said"	Samia	Ivo
2020	"Sue Me (feat. Kelly Price)"	Wale, Kelly Price

Audiobooks

Year	Title	Role	Author	Notes
2020	Love, Kurt: The Vonnegut Love Letters, 1941-1945	Narrator	Edith Vonnegut	An Audible Original

Awards and nominations

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Lucas Hedges

At the 89th Academy Awards, Hedges was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Manchester by the Sea (2016).

See also

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• List of University of North Carolina School of the Arts alumni

External links

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• File:IMDb logo.png Lucas Hedges on IMDb

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