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.
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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.