Interview: Lucas Hedges on ‘French Exit’ and working with iconic actresses [VIDEO]

He may only be 24-years old, but Lucas Hedges has already starred in four Best Picture Oscar nominees and two of them in the same year ( 2017’s Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). He’s an Oscar nominee himself, earning a Best Supporting Actor nomination for 2016’s Manchester by the Sea.

In 2020, he starred against two of Hollywood’s most iconic actresses – Meryl Streep in Let Them All Talk and Michelle Pfeiffer in French Exit (review). In French Exit, Hedges plays the dyspeptic son of the formerly well-to-do New York City socialite Pfeiffer. After his father dies and the family finds out they’re penniless, mom and son take the money (what’s left of it) and run – or cruise, as it were – to Paris, meeting up with a melange of eccentrics including the doctor in the ship’s morgue, a shady clairvoyant and a madame played by Valerie Mahaffey (interview).

I talked with Hedges about his experiences on French Exit, suggested the best movie in the ‘Pfeiffer-verse’ for him to watch and asked him about the touchstones in his life that keep him grounded.

Sony Pictures Classics will release French Exit in New York City and Los Angeles on February 12 and expand nationwide on April 2.