"I became a writer because I love actors," explained Peter Hedges, best known for his novel and screenplay What's Eating Gilbert Grape, as well his Oscar-nominated screenplay adaptation of Nick Hornby's About a Boy. "The first thing I ever wrote was because I was on a mission to show the faculty at North Carolina School of the Arts, where I trained as an actor, that a classmate of mine had more talent than they realized. So when I write, I write the kind of role that I would love to play if I could act, or the kind of role that would attract the kind of actor I want to hang around with."
Recently those actors include Patricia Clarkson, Katie Holmes, Oliver Platt, and Derek Luke, who co-star in Hedges' directorial film debut, Pieces of April, a part comedic and part heartfelt dramatic story about a young woman trying, against all odds, to make a Thanksgiving meal for her estranged family. The film hits theatres this week after charming audiences earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where Clarkson won a jury prize for her acting and United Artists picked up the film for distribution.
According to Hedges, his acting career was short-lived. "The harder I worked, the better everybody else got," said the writer, who now realizes that his problem as an actor is sadly common.
"I find that most actors try too hard," said Hedges, who has sat in on a number of casting sessions for his plays and films. "I have a lot of empathy for this because this is what sank my acting career. I didn't believe that I was interesting enough. So I always felt that I had to act."
After graduating and moving to New York in 1985, he and some of his classmates, including theatre director Joe Mantello (who won a Tony this year for Take Me Out) and actor Mary Louise Parker, founded the Edge Theater. Over a three-year period Hedges wrote 12 plays for his company.
He credits his subsequent triumphs as an Off-Broadway playwright (Baby Anger, Good as New, Imagining Brad), novelist (An Ocean in Iowa), and screenwriter (adaptations of Jane Hamilton's novel A Map of the World and most recently Lauren Weissberger's The Devil Wears Prada) to his early days putting on low-budget theatre.
"If I've had any success as a writer it's because of those years I worked with my friends and we made something out of nothing," he said. "We had no money. We'd rent a theatre before I'd even write the play. I'd write the play because we paid for the theatre and because I told people there would be a play for them to be in them. We just kept making work.
"If I could encourage anybody who's an actor and has reached a point of frustration, where they're not getting the attention that they merit, I would say, 'Look around you. Find like-minded people,' " he suggested. "Find a writer or become that writer. Find a director or become that director. Find a producer or become that producer. And make your own work."
Stormy Aprilround, his learkson,
That grassroots approach served Hedges when it came time to make Piece of April. The financing fo the film fell through three times before the digital video production company InDigEnt stepped in and offered him the chance to make his feature film for under $1 million—instead of the $6 million it would have taken to shoot it on film. The movie was shot in a mere 16 days, his cast and crew working for scale with deferments. Throughout the ups and downs of trying to get this movie off the ground, his lead actors, Holmes and Clarkson, remained committed to the project.
Said Hedges, "So when my movie collapsed three times, and I had Katie and Patty but I didn't have anybody else, I still had the belief deep in my bones that if I believed in it enough and found like-minded people, we could make something in spite of everything that conspired against us. We made Pieces of April very much in the same manner that I made theatre years ago. If I hadn't done the theatre, then I never would have made the movie, because I never would have believed I could make the movie. The biggest problem is that everyone's trying to do it alone. Man, I can't emphasize it enough: Look around you, find who's a good person with talent, who's hungry, and make something with them."
Pieces of April was a labor of love in more ways than one. Not only was the film made in spite of the many financial roadblocks it faced; Hedges had a more personal mission.
"I wanted to direct for 20 years, but wanting to direct and getting to direct a film are not always the same thing," noted Hedges. "All this time I'd been looking for a story that I would have to tell. I never thought that I could direct any movie, but I knew if I could find a story I had to tell and I couldn't wait to tell, that would be the only story I should direct. The older I got, the more important it became that it be a story that met those criteria."
At first, Hedges was unconvinced that his initial idea for Pieces of April was the film he was meant to direct. He had come up with a premise about a woman who finds that on the morning she is to cook her first Thanksgiving turkey, her oven is broken and she must go door-to-door seeking her neighbors' help in cooking her bird. However, Hedges felt that something was missing, and his notes for the film wound up in a drawer until a few years later when his mother was diagnosed with cancer.
"What stuck me when I rediscovered the notes was the reason this girl was cooking the meal was that her mother had cancer. Of course I didn't rediscover those notes until my mom was diagnosed," he shared. "What it meant was that I was probably now ready to write this story, and I was more determined to write it. At the time of [my mother's] funeral, I vowed that I was going to make something singular and something beautiful that would be my tribute to her. I've learned as a writer that you can take some awful experience with something horrible and transform it."
Contradiction and Connection
Hedges, upon further self-examination, has also found that he's drawn toward certain themes and characters in his writing.
"I'm interested, more and more, in how seemingly ordinary people do extraordinary things," he said. "I'm interested in stories about complex, messy people—people who are full of contradiction, and well-intended people who are making a mess of things. I tend to like to write about people who are not openly evil; they just are misguided. I find that it's a hard world to live in, and it's made even harder because so much conspires against living authentically. Between trying to make a living and trying to be a good husband, father, friend, or son, or daughter—between trying to do everything and navigating this broken world, it's easy to lose sight of our place in the world and some connection to self. I'm interested in how we perceive, how we lose, how we keep going, and how we learn."
For those of us who admire Hedges' work, it is our connection to his disenfranchised, socially isolated, or troubled characters that makes his writing resonate. In his latest offering, the title character, April, as played by Holmes, is abrasive and not someone we immediately embrace. Thanks to Hedges' artistry, we come to realize that April wants to do something so many of us wish we could do in our lives—set the record straight. Time is against April, as her mother (Clarkson) may be sharing her last Thanksgiving with her daughter, and that urgency is felt deeply within the audience.
"Most movies I go to, I go to so that I can escape life, and I wanted to make a movie, like Pieces of April, that would make me embrace life," said Hedges, who hopes to direct another film but isn't in any rush. "If I find a story that I can't wait to tell or I have to tell, bring it on, but I don't want to make a movie just to make a movie. I want to listen to the story to see if it's not only worth my time but worth your time."
Like his penchant for messy, complex characters, Hedges greatly admires actors who are willing to present themselves in an unflattering light when it's called for in their character. He particularly loved what Clarkson did with her role in Pieces of April.
"She dares the audience to dislike her in a time where so many actors want to only be loved by their public," he said. "Patricia Clarkson comes along and says, 'This character is sick. She's angry. She's running out of time and she's going to tell you exactly what she feels.' She dares you to dislike her and, irony of ironies, in the end you love her all the more. That bravery is rare, but I think it's because she's serving what the character requires. The great actor isn't vain."
Likewise, Hedges does not want to short-change his audience or his characters. "Adrienne Rich, the poet, said that a lie is a shortcut through another person. So if you want your work to be honest, which I do, then you don't want to take a shortcut through a character. You don't want to cheat that character. You have to be open to their complexity, and they don't necessarily go where you want them to." BSW