Family ties bind in ‘Manchester’
Story details misery, hope after loss,
Heading into his first awards season, Lucas Hedges already has a fun story to tell his school chums about a fan interaction. In his case, though, it was with fellow Oscar hopeful Emma Stone. The 19-year-old Manchester by
the Sea star gushes as he recalls meeting Stone at the Governors Awards. What would be better, though, is if he could actually remember any of it.
“I blacked out the second I looked into her eyes,” Hedges says with a laugh.
After a cameo in his director father Peter Hedges’ 2007 dramedy Dan in Real Life, the actor has his breakout as a scrappy New England kid in Manchester by the Sea.
Played by Hedges, Patrick is a Massachusetts teenager dealing with not only the loss of his fisherman father (Kyle Chandler) but the fact that his Uncle Lee (Casey Affleck) has been named his sole guardian. Tension arises when Lee is stuck in the past and Patrick just wants to move forward with his life.
What makes him crucial to the film: While most of the adults are saddled with heartbreak of some kind, Patrick is filled with youthful vigor. Without him, Hedges says, “the movie seemed to fall into despair.” Manchester writer/director Kenneth Lonergan worried about casting someone he had never worked with, but Hedges “was the one I was most interested in watching,” he says.
Hedges knew Patrick was different from him in high school, but he was dying to play the part when he read the scene where Patrick loses that cool façade and finally breaks down. “I knew in that moment that fundamentally
he just wants to be loved.”
He counts Mary-Louise Parker as “an amazing mentor” — she helped the up-and-coming actor through that key Manchester scene — and his parents also have been a strong grounding force. As for his Hollywood aspirations, “my dad is only as excited as I am,” Hedges says.
Hedges is taking a year off from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts to work. “I’d be leaving school to go to school,” he figures. He has already filmed roles for Martin McDonagh thriller Three Billboards Outside Ebb
ing, Missouri and Greta Gerwig comedy Lady Bird. In January, the Brooklyn native makes his stage debut in a lead role in the offBroadway play Yen.
By then, he might be getting other accolades: Twenty-four of 27 experts on the awards predictions site GoldDerby.com expect a best-supporting-actor nomination for Hedges. “He’s definitely on the short list,” says Dave Karger, special correspondent for movie site IMDb.com.
“It feels weird, man,” Hedges says when Oscar talk comes up. “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t knock me upside the head in some way. Ultimately, I’m just really grateful to be seen right now for a piece of work I’m really proud of.”