Interview: Luke Davies and Felix Van Groeningen at the Beautiful Boy LFF premiere

I did really well for interviews at the Beautiful Boy LFF premiere – not only did I chat with Steve Carell and the real-life David Sheff, but I also got to speak to screenwriter Luke Davies and director and co-writer Felix Van Groeningen. Here are my interviews.

Based on books by the real-life Nic and David Sheff, Beautiful Boy stars Timothee Chalamet as Nic, a son spiralling out of control when he gets hooked on crystal meth. Carell plays his father David.

Here, Davies and Van Groeningen talk briefly about the film.

Luke Davies: 

How involved were the real Nic and David in the screenwriting process? 

They kept their distance because the experience was so overwhelming for them – the concept that this was going to become a film. I kept my distance because I just needed to use the books as the source material and find what the story was out of that. But I met Nic and ended up spending quite a bit of time with him, he’s a lovely guy, and that couldn’t help but influence me. I never met David until about two months ago, but there was no real reason for that – I lived in LA, he lived in San Francisco, we never got to meet.

What do you hope audiences will take home from this movie?

I’m a cinephile and I want cinema lovers to watch a film that is beautiful and good as an artistic experience. What were are finding is that so many audience members are only one degree or two degrees away, or directly connected, to stories of addiction and chaos and so I hope that these people in this very specific story survived and got through to the other side, and maybe other people can to.

I came out of my own history with addiction in my 20s and I wrote the movie Candy a long time ago, the third last film that Heath Ledger was in, he had his own struggles, so I really connected to the story, the father-son relationship gave us everything we needed.

Felix Van Groeningen: 

What was it about Timothee that made him the perfect Nic? 

He was a super charming guy. You care for him very quickly, very much. Other than that, he’s incredibly talented. I think his genius really lies in his fearlessness. This film proves that – that he goes all the way, all the time.