My mother, Carole Hedges, was my world until she walked out of our house when I was 7. Actually, she didn't walk out. Alcohol walked her out.
— Peter Hedges
Lucas is living the life that I wanted, but I want to be clear, I don't feel there's been any pressure for him to live it.
There are so many films I lean on and look toward and return to that give me some guidance on how to keep moving in the world, and that's what film does, at its best.
My older son works in finance and private equity, which he loves, and Lucas works in film and theater.
I'm looking, often, towards younger people, listening to how they're working, at least they're trying, and some of the old greats, too. Just to try to remain relevant and off-balance, but hungry and eager.
I don't know if a mother's love and a father's love is that different.
There are sections of the film that I don't love. There are moments that really lift and elevate, and then there are parts that feel clunkier to me. But the totality of 'Harold and Maude' is so much greater than maybe other films that are more perfect or look more beautiful or handle every moment more exquisitely.
Over the course of my creative life, I've trafficked in broken, heroic mothers.
If you wanted John Gielgud to cry, he could say, 'Which eye?'
I grew up in a very loving but very broken family, and I suppose that's why I'm drawn to telling stories about well-intentioned people who are doing their best - but are not always successful - in figuring out how to maneuver through this complicated, bumpy and broken world.
I'm the lucky father to two young men. When any of your kids, and your parents feel this way about you, clearly, when your kids find what they love to do and they throw themselves into it, and they find joy in the doing of it, and it's actually work that's honorable, and, you know, all of those things, it's a great feeling.
In my family, if something were to have happened with one of my kids, I think my wife would be the tougher one.
The Orpheus myth is my favorite myth, and the prodigal son is my favorite parable.
My mother's sobriety - that's when I found the theater, that's when I moved from being a basketball player to being a musician, to being an actor, to then being a writer.
Well, it made perfect sense that I originally wanted to be an actor because every Sunday, we walked into church and we acted like we were the happiest, most together family.
So much of writing is about what characters don't say, and in the early drafts, sometimes things get overwritten.
My formative years were all shaped by a mother who was very sad and had a drinking problem, while my father was lonely and angry. He was an Episcopal priest and raised four kids on his own.
If you get back into the beginner mindset, you can unearth an energy and a fire that I didn't know I could even still possess.
I've read both books that 'Beautiful Boy' is based on, and I can't wait to see that film. I root for that film.
Harold and Maude' is a film I just keep finding myself rewatching.
