For those who don’t know, Lucas Hedges is the son of filmmaker Peter Hedges, but up until the most recent ‘Ben is Back‘ flick, they hadn’t really worked together.
And that’s mostly because of Lucas. It’s not that he didn’t think his father was an incredibly talented director, it’s just that…who wants to work with their dad? But also, he probably wanted to make his own name in the industry, and now that he’s done that, he feels more comfortable with the idea.
But still, he needed a little encouragement from Julia Freakin’ Roberts before he agreed to star in his father’s latest project, Ben is Back.
Peter told Variety the following…
“I knew I had a problem when I met with Julia, and she wouldn’t listen to any of my ideas for who could play Ben. She said, ‘I want Lucas to do the movie.’ We talked through it, so I was thrilled when he finally decided to read the script.
Who wants to go work with your dad when you can work with Greta Gerwig? You can work with Martin Mcdonagh, Kenny Lonergan… why would you want to work with me? I get it. I would want to work with them before me.”
Lucas doesn’t look at it that way, though. He thinks his father doesn’t give himself enough credit, and once he read the script for Ben is Back, he knew it was something special.
“He wrote an unbelievable script, and he’s also at the end of the day, the only reason why I do this. I would have come along to it, but Julia accelerated the process.”
Hopefully they work together again in the future. Ben is Back is great, but I believe they can make something even better together.
