Richard Linklater’s daughter asked him to kill off her character halfway through Boyhood
Lorelei Linklater lost interest in filming Boyhood in the middle of Richard Linklater's 12-year shoot
Aux News Boyhood
When all is said and done Richard Linklater will be remembered as cinema’s preeminent long-term filmmaker, with both the 12-year shoot for Boyhood and 20-year shoot for Merrily We Roll Along under his belt. Anything can happen when you’re dealing with such a long time frame, and one has to be prepared to adjust and adapt if, for instance, your daughter up and decides she just doesn’t want to do the movie anymore. Luckily, Linklater was able to persuade his real-life kid to keep playing the role of one of the Boyhood kids, so the production didn’t have to resort to drastic measures, per a new interview with The Guardian.
“That little extrovert kid who you see singing and dancing in the early scenes? Well, suddenly she hits puberty and everything changes,” the Before Sunrise director recalls of his daughter Lorelei Linklater’s attitude to acting. “So one day she asked me: ‘Can you kill me off?’ Like an actor leaving a TV soap. ‘It’ll be a memorable episode and then I’ll be off the show.’ And I had to tell her: ‘No, that’s a little too dramatic for what I have in mind.’”
Lorelei herself admitted to some discomfort of having her growth between ages 9 and 21 on display when speaking with Texas Standard back in 2015. “When you’re the person being documented, rather than being fascinating, it’s more just mortifying,” she explained. “And, I know it’s normal, but it just was hard to have the whole world see me in those awkward stages and, how do I say this, thinking that that’s me. A person that I don’t relate to whatsoever—people thinking is me.”
The actor also had some interesting critiques of her dad’s film, pointing to a scene where Mason (Ellar Coltrane) tells a girl that he’s reading Kurt Vonnegut and she responds that her brother likes Kurt Vonnegut as an example that it’s “not a feminist movie.” She added, “And, I don’t know why… that may not sound like it makes any sense but, I don’t know, I just didn’t think the character really had very much personality towards the end.”
“What I’m saying now probably sounds weird. It’s like, ‘Oh she’s talking about her dad, she’s saying negative things about that, why is she doing that?’ He knows,” Lorelei said. “And he’s not, I don’t think he’s phased by what I have to say. I’m always honest with him. He knows that I’m very happy to have been a part of it and think he’s an amazing artist. He knows I think that, which I do. But he also knows that I did have some problems with the film.”
37 Comments
*fazed
I’m confused by what she means when she mentions the dialog referencing Vonnegut. Is it supposed to be bad because Vonnegut isn’t a feminist author or because the female character should have been reading his books herself?
I guess that’s the idea Lorelei has, which doesn’t seem well-considered, as if she thinks her dad is saying “Females don’t read Vonnegut” rather than “Samantha doesn’t read Vonnegut.” I think it’s an error a lot of people make: that this character represents all people of the character’s type (e.g. all gays are this, all males are this, all Latinos are this…).Obviously, I might be misunderstanding what she’s trying to say, though, and another poster can clarify.
Yeah. That’s the only real interpretation that I can see.
That was also my takeaway. Her analysis sounds like my least favorite flavor of modern cultural criticism, which is more or less that everything isa symbol for some Larger Cultural Conversation and the author’s own views on it. Like every single line of dialogue and action must be read as making some distinct standalone point, instead of serving the story. An exhausting, paint-by-numbers way to think about art!
You’re describing analysis and criticism, though. The analysis might be off base or you might simply disagree, but it’s weird to find reading into a text and finding meaning in it “paint-by-numbers.”
I’m describing bad criticism. When I call it paint-by-numbers, I’m critiquing the criticism as facile and uncreative.
I read it as her issue is the girl comes off as a stereotypical “girls don’t read grownup books/are superficial” trope. The original article has more context. https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/why-lorelei-linklater-has-a-problem-with-boyhood/
It’s complicated by the fact that Vonnegut wrote some disgustingly anti-feminist stories, e.g. “Welcome to the Monkey House”.
“I guess that’s the idea Lorelei has, which doesn’t seem
well-considered, as if she thinks her dad is saying “Females don’t read
Vonnegut” rather than “Samantha doesn’t read Vonnegut.”
Kind of weird to assume that someone who worked on the movie for years, knows her Dad, and is a professional actor who presumably understands that she was embodying an individual and not an archetype doesn’t understand that. Almost like you started from the assumption that a complaint of sexism must invalid, and worked backwards from there.
The movie certainly gives its female characters less to do than the male ones. Patricia Arquette does amazing work, and the movie stays neutral about her relationship with Ethan Hawke. But the conversation near the end between Hawke and Coltrane is a tough moment – he ditched his kids for years, and his kids never really call him out. I suppose it’s realistic, but it makes the main character and his dad seem like shitheads. And it’s not clear that the movie really catches that.
My interpretation of it was that the author didn’t really matter, but the female character’s existence in the scene was not to display her own agency or interests, but instead using her own screen time and dialogue to give a different (male) character’s interests.
My interest in Linklater more or less began and ended with Before Sunrise (which is also not a very feminist film but I was able to forgive it at least insofar as you might expect a “romance” film to draw on ideas rooted in heteronormative myth – not that it wasn’t problematic in other ways besides), so my context may be totally off here, but is it possible the objection here is that the exchange is between two male perspectives? That the more relevant detail in Linklater’s script is the relationship men – even men who aren’t present – have with Vonnegut?To put it simply: why should we give a shit about the brother’s relationship to Vonnegut? I can see how relegating the perspective of a female character to below that of a character who isn’t there might make a woman think the scene she’s in is not sufficiently about her.That would seem quite on brand for Linklater to me too. He’s a bit of a softboi, keen on using certain kinds of books as a signifier of certain types of character.
I think it’s the fact that she didn’t have any opinion on it besides that another male character likes him. I haven’t seen the movie but it sounds like she thinks her female character wasn’t given much personality/opinion/personhood overall outside of how she relates to male characters, and this was one piece of it.I think the other commenters are exaggerating a bit in terms of what they think it means for the “culture wars,” or whatever. She’s not saying every line of dialogue has to apply to every member of that group. Just pointing to the fact that she was uncomfortable with the line, and pointing to the history of male writers struggling to write female characters with opinions and thoughts that don’t solely relate to men.
I haven’t seen the movie but it sounds like she thinks her female character wasn’t given much personality/opinion/personhood overall outside of how she relates to male characters, and this was one piece of it.She’s not referring to the character she played but to another character in the film. I agree otherwise though.
Ah okay.
Alternative AVCLUB headline: Nepo baby’s de-nep request noped by nep daddy
I got a Nope notification for this?
Nope. Nope nope nope.
That was the best thing I’ve read in the AV Club comment section in probably six years.
“with both the 12-year shoot for Boyhood and 20-year shoot for Merrily We Roll Along under his belt.”How does completing 4 out of 20 years count as being under one’s belt?
Hilarious example from the writer, given that he released three beloved movies at 9 year intervals.
The sentence is structured a little weirdly, but she’s saying that “When all is said and done” he’ll have those two productions under his belt, not that they both are already.
Yeah that’s fair.
I think this comment got me banished to the greys.
This is not news, I remember hearing about this when the movie came out almost 10 years ago now.
Came here to say the same thing, haha.
Yeah, this is really old news. Why is it here today?
Same here!
Ya, this is Olds.
““And, I know it’s normal, but it just was hard to have the whole world see me in those awkward stages and, how do I say this, thinking that that’s me. A person that I don’t relate to whatsoever—people thinking is me.””
Weird that the daughter of a director -who herself was acting in a movie and is *discussing* acting in a movie- would assume that most people don’t understand that actors are not their parts.
“He knows,”
Yeah, and the rest of us now know that you’re a dick too.
Strangely enough, I also was wishing for death halfway through that movie. Ugh, what a slog it was (except for Patricia Arquette who was brilliant!)
I’m still miffed that it lost the Best Picture Oscar to Birdman.
Sstupid me: I paid to walk out on that twice; figured I was just missing something, but I think not. I did get to see the Emma Stone scene a couple of times, though, so that was good.
My poop should have won the Oscar over Birdman.
… and *another* thing, Vonnegut! I’m gonna stop payment on the check!……“Fuck” me? Hey, Kurt, can you read lips? *Fuck you*! Next time I’ll call Robert Ludlum!
I love everything about that scene. Especially the fact that Vonnegut had enough of a sense of humor to play himself in a Rodney Dangerfield movie.