Quotes from Peter Hedges

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.

I wanted to direct long before I'd even written a screenplay.

Family is paramount to me in my life, and my own comes first above everything, and that's something universal that people can relate to.

I grew up going to funerals and visiting people in nursing homes. I'm not as afraid of dealing with the dying as maybe some other people may be.

There's no reason that a writer, if they have some discipline and curiosities and passion, can't be vital for a long, long time.

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.

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.

I try, in my films, to normalize things that maybe 20 or 30 years ago a film would have been about. 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' needed its own film, but now blended families you see all the time.

And for better or worse, a story like 'Pieces of April' is the kind of story I'm supposed to tell. The kind of story that makes you laugh as much as possible but also breaks your heart.

I love films that take place over a short period of time, and I feel that those films are in our cinematic DNA.

Well, because my films are really about how people interact with each other, and the complexity, and the nuance, and the surprise of those moments I try to create a safe enough space that allows the actors to operate from their own instincts. My direction is more suggestions, prompts or questions.

Pieces of April' was going to be a 3 to 7 million dollar film and we had three entities, two studios, and one wealthy man and they all backed out. It was quite a blow.

If you get back into the beginner mindset, you can unearth an energy and a fire that I didn't know I could even still possess.

Maudlin scenes where people pour their heart out to one another? I don't want to see it.

I feel cool when I say I live in Brooklyn.

I grew up in a very loving but very broken family, and I suppose that's why I'm drawn to telling stories about well-intentioned people who are doing their best - but are not always successful - in figuring out how to maneuver through this complicated, bumpy and broken world.

My formative years were all shaped by a mother who was very sad and had a drinking problem, while my father was lonely and angry. He was an Episcopal priest and raised four kids on his own.

Something happened to me when I wrote female characters in my early plays; it was a real liberation.

My older son works in finance and private equity, which he loves, and Lucas works in film and theater.

Writing a really good screenplay is not easy. It can be a very punishing form.

I used to find limitations frustrating, but I find them enormously liberating.

When you have an intimate encounter with mortality as my family and I did with my mom's death, I took a long look at my life and I asked myself what was the one thing that I hadn't done that I had really wanted to do. And it was to write and direct a film.

I don't want to write my life. I live my life. I want to make up a new world.

I want to write stories that don't help you escape life, but embrace life.