Peter Hedges

Beasley Digital

While talking about his new film Ben Is Back, writer/wirector Peter Hedges admits he loves us but has a funny way of showing it.

Transcript

00:00There you go.

00:02Alright, so, uh, in theaters...

00:05Oh, oh no!

00:08No!

00:09You did it!

00:11He just told us to F off.

00:12Oh God, how much did that cost me?

00:15No, we're good, we got it.

00:16I caught it, don't worry about it.

00:17You raised the double birds.

00:19I'm the son of a minister.

00:22Please welcome Mr. Peter Hedges.

00:25Yeah!

00:26Thank you, thank you, thank you.

00:27To our program, nice to see you, Peter.

00:29Nice to be here.

00:30So you're a ukulele player, huh?

00:32I am, I really rip it up.

00:35You tear up the ukulele.

00:36Now do you say ukulele or ukulele?

00:38Because we know that the proper...

00:40No, I, I, it's, it's, I'm just cool.

00:43Peter was on there in case of chit-chat with him.

00:46My wife is like, really?

00:47This is the instrument you chose to pick up?

00:50Do you really want to get laid?

00:51Because it's not going to happen.

00:52It's not going to happen.

00:53Nobody wants to...

00:55Yeah, you don't ever see somebody like Pete Townsend, you know,

00:58it just doesn't happen.

00:59And I know four chords, but I can play most songs.

01:02I will tell you this, just as there are gateway drugs,

01:04I think this is a gateway to an actual guitar, you know?

01:07That's why it's worth it.

01:08Preston has started with an ukulele and is now learning guitar.

01:12Yep.

01:12All right.

01:13Yeah.

01:13And then I feel hopeful.

01:15You'll get there.

01:15But after hearing Barnes, I think maybe I'll just let him play.

01:18Yeah.

01:19Because that was awesome.

01:20He was fantastic, wasn't he?

01:21Let me ask you something.

01:22As a director and a writer and a creator of things like that,

01:25music is obviously an essential part of the way the mood is set in a film.

01:28And you're always looking for new things.

01:31Super important.

01:32Yeah.

01:32You know, over the years, I've gotten to work with Stephen Merritt

01:35and the Magnetic Fields.

01:36They scored my film Pieces of April.

01:38Yeah.

01:38The great Norwegian singer-songwriter, Sandre Lerka, scored Dan in real life.

01:42He was 23 when he did the score.

01:44Wow.

01:45Glenn Hansard and Marquetta wrote a song for my film,

01:48The Odd Life of Timothy Green.

01:50Music is everything.

01:52I write to music.

01:53I listen to music all the time.

01:55You know, like Stephen King writes to ACDC all the time.

01:59Yeah, I should probably try ACDC because I'd have a nicer house.

02:03But no, you know, music is so inspiring.

02:08I mean, hearing, it just makes you feel so glad to be alive.

02:11Yeah, yeah.

02:12I love your work.

02:14I love, you know, from the writing to the directing.

02:17And I think what you do is particularly difficult in that in the kind of drama

02:25and the kind of stuff that you write, you are going down a line where a little bit to the left

02:31and it's treacly and then a little bit to the right, it's too self-aware.

02:37You've got to, it really, I think of all these genres of film,

02:40it's the one that requires you to be as spot on as you can be.

02:44Am I correct in saying that?

02:45No, I think you're right.

02:46It's so tricky.

02:48But if you're trying to articulate the human condition, I mean, we're living in such a wacky time.

02:53And I try to put these broken people on screen that are, you know, trying their best to do the right thing.

03:01So in Ben is back, which we were, we're blown away by the trailer.

03:05It happens, it's coming at a time, you know, it deals with a young man battling an addiction issue

03:12and returning home to his family takes place on the holiday, Christmas, and in one day, I believe, right?

03:19That's right.

03:19And so it's, I mean, we hear stories constantly and it's, you know, we have advertisers that, you know,

03:26treatment centers and things of that nature.

03:27It's a critical mass problem.

03:30And actually within my own family, I see, you know, an extended family, I see people dealing with this.

03:35You have the dynamic of the family and you have the Julia Roberts as the mom who wants to do everything they can without enabling,

03:41but yet making sure that there's a voice of reason.

03:44And every dynamic is in play at the same time.

03:47And I would imagine as a parent, I don't have kids, but they all do.

03:52You're just a spinning compass.

03:54I don't know how you, what you fix on to help somebody you dearly love and don't know what to do.

04:00Right.

04:01That's something that tons of people are facing right now.

04:04And Julia does this amazing job in the film.

04:07She just goes everywhere and anywhere on behalf of her kid.

04:12And that's my experience with most parents.

04:16They'll do anything they can to help their kid.

04:19And it's just a question of how do you help?

04:21What's the loving thing to do?

04:23How do you help someone who is, you know, addiction's a disease?

04:27Yeah.

04:27And how do you help treat it?

04:29In my own family, in the situation that I've seen, you know, many different things have been tried.

04:36Is this the way to go?

04:37Is this the way to go?

04:38Is this the way to go?

04:38The love never wanes, but it's like, at what point you have to, the person has to assess,

04:44am I killing myself in pursuit of this?

04:48You know, and what about the people who aren't addicted?

04:51Are they suffering as a result?

04:52And, you know, it's an amazing thing to deal with.

04:56And I think even more difficult for you as the writer, director to do the just thing when dealing with it.

05:02Well, true.

05:04But I wanted to put a story out that shone a light on how all the angles, all the points of view.

05:12Sure.

05:13And to try to expand compassion that people might have for people who are going through this.

05:19Right.

05:19And sometimes you can't imagine how hard it is.

05:23Yeah.

05:23Oddly, though, there's incredible amounts of humor in the film.

05:26Yeah.

05:27There's a lot of love.

05:28There's these kind of surprising moments of joy.

05:32Yeah.

05:32And then there's a lot of heartbreak and agony.

05:34Like life.

05:35Yeah.

05:35Well, and you're the guy to pull it off.

05:37I mean, because, you know, About a Boy does that so wonderfully.

05:40There's heartbreak.

05:42There's hope.

05:43And there's a lot of humor in it as well.

05:46In fact, it's hard to categorize that movie.

05:48There's so many funny moments in it that it's hard to categorize that as a drama as well.

05:53Just to point out, I mean, like, how did you have the idea of Will going to a women's support group to pick up women?

06:00Had you heard of someone?

06:02No, that's the genius of the great Nick Hornby who wrote the novel.

06:06Right.

06:06Oh, okay.

06:07You did the screenplay.

06:08That is correct.

06:09No, no, no.

06:09But Nick wrote this amazing novel.

06:12And they called me and said, do you want to adapt this?

06:14And I said, I don't want to do.

06:16I want to do my own work.

06:17Sure.

06:17Then they said, I said, finally.

06:19And they called a few times.

06:20I said, what's the book about?

06:21And they said, well, it's about this single guy who goes to it.

06:23And I said, oh, you've got to send it to me right away.

06:25Yeah.

06:26And it's one of those books I read.

06:28I went, oh, my, I wish I'd written it.

06:29And so all I tried to do was help to help move it.

06:34And then the Whites Brothers came in and did their beautiful, beautiful film of it and took what I did and improved it, I think, massively.

06:42So, but I got to swim around in that story.

06:45And I just tried to serve it, you know, which is what you try to do when you're working on anything like that.

06:50It's just to be helpful.

06:51Your mother is a psychotherapist?

06:54She was.

06:54She was a psychotherapist.

06:55And your dad is or was a?

06:57An Episcopal priest, yeah.

06:59So you, you, you're, I think you, your empathetic ability to tie into things at least resonate.

07:05Right.

07:05I was groomed.

07:07Yeah.

07:07You had a good skill.

07:09Raised to be that guy who got beat up and was like, I love everybody.

07:15I'm a vegetarian.

07:17Here's a ukulele.

07:18Here's a ukulele.

07:20You can see that there's a real motif here.

07:22Were you a sensitive ponytail guy at any point?

07:25Never a ponytail.

07:26I did have a kind of a Mick Jagger moment where my hair was long, but I didn't have any of Mick's swagger.

07:31Okay.

07:31I was too, too sweet.

07:33You know, I was the nice guy.

07:34Well, we love your work.

07:35Really.

07:36It's a pleasure to have long and robust conversations about me.

07:42About me.

07:43You love me.

07:44You really love me.

07:45And now I'm going to sing.

07:47Let's go to commercial.

07:49Well, we brought up some ukulele music for you.

07:51Oh, great.

07:52Yeah.

07:53My wife's getting ready with the nightgown.

07:56We're going to have some fun.

07:58She gets so turned on.

07:59Oh, it's so over.

08:01Oh, this is great.

08:02It's the final countdown?

08:02This is the final countdown on ukulele.

08:04I don't know why this is a piano part at the beginning of the year.

08:06I like the piano, though.

08:07It is kind of fun, though.

08:08I don't know when it's going to kick in here at any point.

08:10But listen.

08:11You're telling me.

08:12I will remind people that I'm going home.

08:14This could be part of the soundtrack.

08:16Yeah, there you go.

08:17This could be the closing credits.

08:19Oh, there's a kazoo, too.

08:21Thanks.

08:22Thanks so much.

08:23Here we go.

08:24All right.

08:25So anyhow.

08:26You want me to keep going?

08:28There you go.

08:30All right.

08:31So in theaters.

08:32He just told us to F off.

08:40Oh, God.

08:41How much did that cost you?

08:42No, we're good.

08:43We got it.

08:43I caught it.

08:44Don't worry about it.

08:44You raised the double birds.

08:46I'm the son of a minister.

08:51Oh.

08:52This has been a great day.

08:54Oh, my God.

08:55Here we go.

08:56Ladies and gentlemen, Ben is back.

08:58He's at theater.

08:587 by 4th, says Peter Hedges.

09:00We'll take a break and we'll be right back.

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