It seems things on Richard Linklater‘s secretive, years-in-the-making “Boyhood” are moving along faster than even Ethan Hawke predicted. It was just a few months ago that the actor said the movie was still about two years off, but it seems the sands in the hour glass are sliding through much more quickly than expected.
Speaking with Huffington Post, Hawke revealed that the movie was nearing the finish line. “I’m in the second to last episode. They are doing one more in November. It will be at Sundance or Cannes or Berlin or something next year,” he said. “It’s the most truly original, revolutionary thing I’ve ever been a part of.” So what makes this so unique and distinct? Linklater has been working on for the movie since 2002, shooting sequences each year, in a drama that will chronicle the life of the child from age of six through to the twelfth grade. The conceit will allow audiences to see the kid, played by Ellar Salmon, actually grow up on camera, with his parents—Hawke and Patricia Arquette—also aging as well. There’s realism, and then there’s “Boyhood.”
Here’s what Hawke had to say about what we can expect from the movie, and his own experience making it:
…this is about growing up and the little moments that define our identity that aren’t about your bar mitzvah or your first time you had sex. There are these signposts that are supposed to be meaningful — prom, or something — that aren’t really meaningful. The movie is going to be — I don’t know what people are going to make out of it — but I do know it’s the damned most original thing I’ve ever been a part of.
In 2002 when it started, the parents are going though a divorce and it opens with the mom — and you don’t see me. And then I come for a weekend visit the next year. The first scene I did was with a 7-year-old boy…and I take this 7-year-old boy bowling — and I’m chain smoking in a bowling alley, which was legal then. And I finished yesterday and I’m 42 years old — I was 33 when I did my first scene — he’s 19. He’s a grown man! He’s got crazy ear rings and he’s taller than me and he’s intimidating. Just acting in the movie felt like nothing I’ve ever done.
Frankly, it sounds phenomenal and we can’t wait for this. And you can bet those fests are already ringing Linklater to land what already promises to be one of the most unique cinematic experiences of 2014.