Deeper by the dozen
‘Boyhood’ director Richard Linklater lets characters grow over 12 years of filming
Director Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” is one of the most ambitious and extraordinary projects in the history of film. It is the simple but also epic tale of the young life of a boy from Texas named Mason, from his days as a daydreaming 7-yearold to a brooding, sensitive college freshman.
The movie was shot in threeor four-day increments over the course of some 12 years using the same core cast: Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the divorced parents Mason Sr. and Olivia, and Ellar Coltrane and Linklater’s daughter Lorelei as their children, Mason Jr. and Samantha.
“Boyhood” played to packed houses in limited release and opened Friday at Chicago-area theaters. What follows is an edited (for space) version of a conversation with Linklater last week.
Q. We’ve seen documentaries such as the “Up” series that revisit people as they age, but in the fictional realm, this is something entirely different. When did this idea first pop into your head?
A. I was thinking about this starting in the late ’90s, and by 2001, I think I had my idea for how to tell this particular story. I wanted to tell a story about growing up, but when you’re [dealing with that age range], it’s not as simple as saying, “Oh, now you’re 60, we’ll gray your hair.” My ideas were all over the map, and I kind of had given up and then — boom — just at the moment I had given up, this idea hit. In my mind, I was sitting watching one film that felt very continuous, just one thing, and then everyone just aged and grew up and it would be one film, and I saw my narrative of how to make this movie.
Q. You knew Hawke and Arquette were pros and they were going to be able to revisit the characters every year and inhabit them again. The real risk was in casting the child actors.
A. That was the really volatile element in the chemical equation that could blow up, but it was also — you had to think of it as that was the fun thing, that was the secret sauce that would make it what it is. That would be a fun thing to look forward to. The film was just going to kind of gradually adjust itself to where the kids were and what was going on. Ethan and Patricia too, but in a more volatile way the kids, and it was just going to go where Ellar went to a larger degree. And it was designed to kind of be able to do that.
Q. One year your daughter asked if maybe her character would be killed off. You also couldn’t know in advance if Ellar was going to be a good actor as a teenager — or if he would even want to continue to be in the film.
A. Yeah, it was a huge leap of faith. You’re kind of casting the parents to a degree; his parents are artists and he wasn’t some kid off the street, he had been in a movie a couple of friends of mine had worked on, and they said, “Oh, he’s a really good kid,” they liked working with him, so you know — little things. And kids like movie sets, there’s a lot of food, a lot of fun stuff going on, all these adults giving them their attention.
Q. Ellar was 7 when you started shooting. There are so many things you don’t even remember happening to you at that age.
A. He said when he saw the movie he didn’t even remember being there so much. My only hope was that he would kind of incrementally age into it and get a bigger understanding for what it was. He said about halfway through, for sure, he kind of thought, like, “Hmmm … wow … what a thing.” He could grasp it a little more at the halfway point.
Q. Then there’s all the pop-culture stuff. Shooting in nearly real time, year by year, certain influences are obvious. Other times, you’re guessing what will endure as a touchstone.
A. Yeah, that was part of the collaboration with the unknown future. As it was happening you’re just kind of going, well, is this significant? Would you remember this moment?
It’s funny how certain things age and how certain things get a laugh now. The Harry Potter scene, with the kids lining up for a midnight book party; they didn’t do that when I was a kid, they may never do that again. It’s kind of like the Apollo space program when I was a kid. The stuff about the Obama campaign — we shot that before he won the election. But obviously no matter how it turned out, you would remember that election.
Q. Did you ever show the kids the footage?
A. No, not the kids. They never asked. Patricia and Ethan were seeing it, Ethan a little more than Patricia. He’s more of a collabora- tor. I was thinking the kids might get self-conscious. … It’s a unique position to see your physicality documented. It’s not a documentary about you, but it’s you, it’s how you looked at a certain place in time, and it’s a trip for both of them.
Q. Seeing as how you returned twice to the Hawke and Julie Delpy characters in the “Before” movies, I’m sure you’re getting the question: Are we going to see what happens to Mason and Lorelei and their parents 10 or 15 years from now?
A. That’s like asking a mother right after she’s given birth if she’ll have another baby way down the road. I haven’t even thought about that, but I would never say it’s never going to happen.