Ira Sachs, Rebecca Hall and Ben Whishaw on 'Peter Hujar's Day' | THR Studio at Park City - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

'Peter Hujar's Day' director Ira Sachs and stars Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall stop by THR's studio in Park City to talk all about their new film.

Transcript

00:00I think my father was working with Maurice Sendak in some capacity and many, many, many years later

00:07I stumbled across a copy, my copy clearly, of Higgledy Piggledy Pop from when I was a child

00:14and I opened it up thinking I should read this to my daughter and there was a drawing of a sheepdog inside it

00:19and it said, Rebecca, I hope you enjoy this Maurice Sendak.

00:25And then I felt very starstruck in that moment knowing that I would have met Maurice Sendak at two years old

00:31and he had drew like a little wild thing's crown on it.

00:34Oh my God. Is it on your wall?

00:36Yeah, no, it's not. I mean, the book is in a case.

00:40In 1974 there was a conversation between a woman named Linda Rosencrantz and her friend, the photographer Peter Hujar.

00:51She had an idea to write a book about artists' daily life and she invited a number of artists over

00:57to speak to her about what they did yesterday and she recorded those conversations

01:02and then she very proceeded to lose the audiotapes of all the conversations.

01:08But this particular one she had transcribed and typed and she, and then it disappeared.

01:14Fifty years later it was found in the Peter Hujar archive at the Morgan Library by a young archivist and historian

01:21and it was published as a book called Peter Hujar's Day.

01:25And I read the book while I was working with Ben in Paris on passages and thought, you know,

01:33really like on the last page I was like we should make this as a movie.

01:36It was as one, like that Ben and I should make a movie of this material.

01:41And we share, I would say, a love and interest in Peter's work

01:47and also in queer life and queer creation in New York in the 70s and 80s,

01:52which for me has been very inspiring as I try to continue,

01:57like to see what those artists did and what they did during that time

02:01and how they did it with a certain kind of freedom and risk-taking

02:06has been very inspiring to me.

02:08Peter had no money, that we definitely know.

02:12When he died he was really penniless.

02:14Everyone was kind of horrified that he had really nothing at all.

02:18So that's obviously not good.

02:19But I think there's a freedom that comes with the situation that they were working in

02:27and a kind of radical, a radicality that was possible.

02:32And it's mixed, I would say.

02:35Yeah.

02:36It's one thing I'm thinking as you talk is the nice thing about being together

02:41is you actually learn from, like as you're describing Peter,

02:44I think I need to keep this in mind for myself,

02:47that not having money for creative things is positive,

02:51that it gives you actually attention.

02:54And yeah, that's a beautiful way to describe it.

02:56I sort of always thought that it would be a good idea

02:59to actually, you know, write to a filmmaker when you enjoy a film

03:04and say, I really love that film.

03:06But I often sort of chicken out of it

03:08because I'm like, oh, that seems, I don't know, too much.

03:11Why would they want it?

03:11I don't know.

03:12But in this instance, I did it.

03:14And I was like, more than write to Iris X,

03:16I'm going to set up a breakfast in New York City.

03:21And did and was able to just express what a fan I was of him.

03:27Like he said, he did offer me a job and I was actually very disappointed

03:30I couldn't take that job because of scheduling reasons at the time.

03:33And I just wanted to sort of know him and be in his orbit

03:37and have an opportunity to work with him.

03:39So when this came up, when he suggested this,

03:41it was really exciting to me for all the reasons that you said.

03:45You know, I live in New York.

03:46I have done actually for many, many years now.

03:48And I also have a fascination with that era.

03:53I think a lot of people do.

03:54But there's something, there is, it's easy, yes, to romanticize it.

03:59But I think there is a good way to romanticize it

04:01in the sense that there was a sort of, there was a community

04:05and there was a sense of striving to create and stick it to the man,

04:12I guess, that I think is very different to the place

04:16that artists find themselves in now.

04:18Where, you know, that there isn't really any counterculture in a way.

04:23There is only culture, which is good and bad.

04:25But the sort of sense that there's no, that these,

04:30that these were people who were just creating art for art's sake

04:33and not thinking about the commerce angle or the,

04:36yes, they needed money desperately, but that wasn't their sort of,

04:39they weren't thinking about how to do something that could be,

04:42have integrity to them and make money or be a brand or whatever.

04:46And I think for me, what was interesting about the text

04:51and what I imagined and what has sort of developed with these two

04:55is also a story of a friendship.

04:58And I think that is really the unexpected part of the film

05:01and the part that makes it actually seem in the present.

05:04Like you try to make a film, it is maybe a period film,

05:07but you want that period nature to disappear.

05:10And I think that's what happens because of kind of the emotional life

05:14between these two people, Ben and Rebecca,

05:17and also through these two characters, Peter and Linda.

Ira Sachs, Rebecca Hall and Ben Whishaw on 'Peter Hujar's Day' | THR Studio at Park City

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