Interview: Steve Carell and David Sheff at the Beautiful Boy LFF premiere

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of speaking to Steve Carell and David Sheff at the Beautiful Boy London Film Festival premiere – and here are the interviews.

In Beautiful Boy, Carell stars as real-life journalist Sheff, whose son Nic (played by Timothee Chalamet) is spiralling out of control after becoming addicted to crystal meth. On the red carpet, I spoke to both Carell and the real Sheff about the film.

Steve Carell: 

What sort of preparation did you do to research the role? Did you meet with David? 

I did. We had lunch and he came to set a few times as well. He’s just a lovely man, very courageous and kind, gentle. Everything I picked up on from reading his book, he was in person. He was also very generous. The fact that he and his son wrote these incredibly honest novels and then turned the story over to a bunch of Hollywood people they didn’t know and hope for the best was a real leap of faith, so I give them a lot of credit for allowing that to happen. I hope we did it justice.

What are you hoping that people take away from this film?

I hope they realise that addiction isn’t a moral failing and doesn’t discriminate. But, you know what, I think everyone will take away something different and it would be nice if it starts a discussion with people. My two kids saw it last week and it was really good, you know, we sat and we talked about it. My daughter cried on my shoulder for a while. It would be nice if it had some sort of resonance.

David Sheff: 

Steve said he met you before filming began – what was that meeting like? 

I’m in awe of Steve Carell so of course for me, it was a little intimidating but he’s such a warm, loving person that he instantly made me comfortable and I could tell he was committed to making a movie that was really true, really honest about what it’s like to be a father worried about their child dying.

How did it feel watching him play you on the big screen? 

Weird, very weird, but it was interesting because I could see it from two perspectives. One perspective was watching it as a moviegoer, as a fan of movies, and saying, ‘Oh my God, look at this amazing performance’ and then trying to relate to this guy, you know, the father he’s playing, and the reason I think it was so effective was because he caught the emotion in such a deep way. It brought it all back and it was very emotional. It was in tears.