Honey Boy is a strikingly raw self-referential piece from the creative mind of Shia LaBeouf, and when the film was showing at the London Film Festival we had the pleasure of sitting down with many of the talented people that brought his screenplay to life, including the two lead stars Lucas Hedges and Noah Jupe. We also chatted to their co-star Byron Bowers, who was sat alongside the film’s director, Alma Har’el.
They each discuss their experience working closely alongside LaBeouf on the project, and how his intensity for the role and story raised the games of all of those around him. We also chat about the themes in the film, such as being the child of an alcoholic, and the notion of half-remembered childhood memories, while also touching about the importance of protecting young stars in this unforgiving industry.
Watch both interviews in their entirety below:
Synopsis
From a screenplay by Shia LaBeouf, based on his own experiences, award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el brings to life a young actor’s stormy childhood and early adult years as he struggles to reconcile with his father through cinema and dreams. Fictionalizing his childhood’s ascent to stardom, and subsequent adult crash-landing into rehab and recovery, Har’el casts Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges as Otis Lort, navigating different stages in a frenetic career. LaBeouf takes on the daring and therapeutic challenge of playing a version of his own father, an ex-rodeo clown and a felon. Artist and musician FKA Twigs makes her feature-film debut, playing neighbor and kindred spirit to the younger Otis in their garden-court motel home. Har’el’s feature narrative debut is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between filmmaker and subject, exploring art as medicine and imagination as hope.
Honey Boy is released on December 6th
