A biography for Peter Hedgeshasn’t been written yet.
“It's not easy to be a good or wise parent. You do the best you can.”
“I'm looking, often, towards younger people, listening to how they're working, at least they're trying, and some of the old greats, too. Just to try to remain relevant and off-balance, but hungry and eager.”
“I've read both books that 'Beautiful Boy' is based on, and I can't wait to see that film. I root for that film.”
“Something happened to me when I wrote female characters in my early plays; it was a real liberation.”
“The job in every re-write is to make it harder for your characters to get the thing that they need.”
“I took a look at my own life and realized that I was overinvesting in my kids. I realized that I had to get out of the way and let them be who they wanted to be, not what I wanted them to be.”
“You could cast nearly any movie in Brooklyn, and now you can film in Brooklyn - for you have studios.”
“My older son works in finance and private equity, which he loves, and Lucas works in film and theater.”
“When I was a young lad just out of college at the North Carolina School of the Arts, I directed several plays that I wrote. It was essential theater, meaning we had no money, so our set may be six stools and two chairs and eight cream pies.”
“I make sure when I direct that it's a very joy-based set that hopefully is filled with a lot of respect.”
“A novel is challenging, because you have more story than you need and you have to select and narrow.”
“My mother, Carole Hedges, was my world until she walked out of our house when I was 7. Actually, she didn't walk out. Alcohol walked her out.”
“There are sections of the film that I don't love. There are moments that really lift and elevate, and then there are parts that feel clunkier to me. But the totality of 'Harold and Maude' is so much greater than maybe other films that are more perfect or look more beautiful or handle every moment more exquisitely.”
“Is my job as a child, even as an adult, is my job to heal the wounds of my parents' childhoods?”
“I want to make a series of films of contemporary America that feel urgent and deal with sometimes-topical matters, but hopefully in a universal way.”
“Well, it made perfect sense that I originally wanted to be an actor because every Sunday, we walked into church and we acted like we were the happiest, most together family.”
“Black people are more likely to be incarcerated than white people. That's just a fact and it's regrettable and it's got to change.”
“The Orpheus myth is my favorite myth, and the prodigal son is my favorite parable.”
“Let the story lead you. If the story needs to be dark, let it go dark. If it's a sweet, good-for-the-world story, that's what it is.”