{"id":4458,"date":"2026-07-28T21:36:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T21:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=4458"},"modified":"2026-07-28T21:36:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T21:36:35","slug":"richard-linklater-looks-back-at-boyhood-12-years-later-time-never-quits-working-on-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=4458","title":{"rendered":"Richard Linklater Looks Back at \u2018Boyhood,\u2019 12 Years Later: \u201cTime Never Quits Working on Us\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tTwelve years ago this month, Richard Linklater released a movie unlike any other. Boyhood<\/em>, filmed in secret over 12 years with the same cast, followed a Texas kid named Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) from first grade to his first day of college \u2014 no makeup tricks, no digital de-aging, just time itself doing the work. Made for $200,000 a year on a handshake deal with IFC, it premiered as a surprise addition at Sundance in 2014, earned universal acclaim, won Patricia Arquette an Oscar, and is routinely cited among the greatest films of the century.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018In the City\u2019 Reunion Concludes With Part Two: How to Watch \u2018Summer House\u2019 Spinoff\u2019s Cast Sit-Down Online<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tNow, on the film\u2019s 12th anniversary \u2014 a span chosen to mirror the 12 years of production \u2014 Boyhood<\/em> returns to theaters July 31 via IFC, following a cast reunion and Q&A in Linklater\u2019s hometown of Austin. <\/p>\n

\n\tFor the season nine finale of The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>\u2018s It Happened in Hollywood<\/em> podcast, the director \u2014 fresh off 2025\u2019s twin charmers Blue Moon<\/em> and Nouvelle Vague<\/em> and midway through his 20-year adaptation of Stephen Sondheim\u2019s Merrily We Roll Along<\/em> \u2014 discussed watching Boyhood<\/em> for the first time since 2014, the flash of inspiration that solved a 25-year-old creative problem, and how Ethan Hawke pushed him to rewrite the film\u2019s most devastating scene.<\/p>\n

\n\tListen to the full conversation on It Happened in Hollywood<\/em>, and read the highlights below.
\u00a0
You, Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette recently rewatched Boyhood<\/em> for the first time since 2014. What did you make of what you created?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGod, it was fascinating. A couple years ago, IFC was interested in doing a 10-year anniversary. I said, \u201cEverybody always does 10s and 20s. Let\u2019s do 12.\u201d Mainly I was just delaying it two years \u2014 but if there were ever a film that deserved a not-round number, it\u2019s this one. I hadn\u2019t watched it, Patricia hadn\u2019t seen it, or Ethan, in 12 years. So there was something cool about the 12 years we spent making it now being the 12 years we haven\u2019t seen it or thought about it much. It was kind of the most unique experience of my life of watching a thing I did.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the time you finish your movie, you\u2019ve seen it so much, you\u2019ve pored over it for so long, you really just want to be done with it. And I had a unique experience even in the way I remembered it. Say I cut something in the last two years that I had seen for seven years \u2014 in my film memory, it was still in the movie. I\u2019d be anticipating, \u201cOh, here\u2019s that line I never liked that much,\u201d and we\u2019d get to the scene and it\u2019d be gone. I was more wrong about it than other films I\u2019ve made, just because I experienced it in so many different phases.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt struck me that the film\u2019s got its own little time-release formula. If you haven\u2019t seen it in 12 years, it\u2019s largely a different movie. Someone who was 18 watching it for the first time will have a very different experience at 30. I saw things I thought were funny \u2014 it was more dramatic than I remembered. More intense. A lot more cautionary things, a lot more advice. I saw threads that I wasn\u2019t conscious of, maybe.<\/p>\n

\nYour daughter Lorelei plays Mason\u2019s sister, Samantha. She\u2019s so funny in it. So much of your personal DNA is baked into the story.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWatching her grow up on film again was profound. When do you get to revisit your own kid \u2014 not in a home movie, but in this fictional world that was actually tapping into little quirks of her at certain ages? It was wild.<\/p>\n

\nTake me back to the beginning. What inspired the idea?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGoing back about 25 years \u2014 I had been a parent for a while at that point. Lorelei was eight or nine when I got this idea. I wanted to make a film about childhood. I hadn\u2019t done that, and being a parent, you can\u2019t help but revisit your own childhood. Everybody thinks they have their 400 Blows in them somewhere, but I never could land on one moment of childhood. The origin of Boyhood<\/em> was me being frustrated with what I felt was the limited canvas of making a film about a kid. Most of the great childhood movies are really about a specific moment, a specific summer, a specific three days. I was interested in the growing up part \u2014 all of it. I was thinking more like a novelist. I wanted to bite off a much bigger chunk of development, and you can\u2019t really do that on film unless you skip a lot of years and cast someone else. You can\u2019t ask a seven-year-old, \u201cOK, now you\u2019re 10, now you\u2019re 13.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I was feeling that restriction intensely, and just at the moment I was giving up that I could do this cinematically, I was sitting down to write what I felt would be this kind of experimental novel about growing up. And as my fingers hit the keyboard \u2014 I\u2019m not kidding \u2014 this film popped into my head fully formed: What if everyone just aged throughout the movie, and by the end of this one feature film, everybody would be older? Why can\u2019t you do that? I hadn\u2019t seen that in a narrative. First through 12th grade was always the grid \u2014 the grid we\u2019re all on educationally. It was one of those aha flash moments, but looking back, I was solving a narrative problem, probably not unlike a physicist who wakes up with a formula in their head. The idea was the fun part. The hard part was figuring out how to actually do it in the real world.<\/p>\n

\nYou went to Ethan, who you were close with. How did you get everyone else to commit to a 12-year undertaking?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tEthan and Patricia came on in similar fashion. I was in New York; I sat down with Ethan and told him the idea. I\u2019ll never forget the look on his face. It was about five seconds of \u201cHuh?\u201d \u2014 and then, \u201cCool.\u201d Same with Patricia. I called her up and said, \u201cWhat are you doing 12 years from now? You\u2019re going to be an actor looking for a role. I\u2019m going to be a filmmaker trying to get my next film made. Statistically speaking, most likely.\u201d And we started talking about our moms and she came aboard. She\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, let\u2019s do it.\u201d Artists responded, put it like that. It was just a logistical challenge.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven financially, that wasn\u2019t a problem, because IFC pretty early on came aboard. Jonathan Sehring at IFC, who I\u2019d made two films with at that point, took the leap with us. I was like, \u201cGive us $200,000 a year. We\u2019re going to shoot on film. At the end, you\u2019ll have a film by me with Ethan and Patricia.\u201d He\u2019s just like, \u201cThat could be really cool.\u201d They were producing a lot of films in the early century, and by the last four or five years he\u2019s like, \u201cYou\u2019re our only production. We\u2019re in production on one film. Better be good.\u201d But Jonathan was there to the end, and they ended up distributing it. We got our $200,000 a year. Never got a raise. It got more expensive to make films, but we just got our $200,000 a year. A lot had to go right, put it like that. We were tempting fate, obviously, but we all believed. It was a wonderful, wonderful life experience.<\/p>\n

\nHow did you find Ellar Coltrane, who plays Mason Jr.?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tCasting the kids was a whole different thing. When you\u2019re talking to adults, they\u2019re making an adult decision. When I first met Ellar, he was six. I decided early on I didn\u2019t want to just pull some kid off the street \u2014 I wanted a kid who had a lot of family support behind their acting, because you\u2019re asking a kid to make such a mature decision it\u2019s almost not fair. He had a headshot and r\u00e9sum\u00e9. He\u2019d been in one indie thing, one TV thing. His dad\u2019s a musician, his mom\u2019s a dancer \u2014 an artistic couple with deep roots in central Texas. What if he moved away? Logistically, we couldn\u2019t afford flying people in. So you\u2019re kind of casting the parents and the family too.<\/p>\n

\n\tI met a lot of kids \u2014 huge casting sessions. There were these little jockey kids, and I could have gone that way. But Ellar was more ethereal. To me, he represented a future artist. He had elevated tastes in storytelling and music and culture. His favorite band at six was Rage Against the Machine. And Lorelei, she\u2019s a medievalist \u2014 she does Britney Spears in the first episode, but she had to really learn that. She was listening to medieval harpsichord music. Those kids were not much help about being contemporaneous to their generation. They were sort of outliers, but very great souls. And Ellar, sure enough, grew up to be this sensitive poet guy. He\u2019s a poet living in New Mexico now. The film was going to go where he went, to a large degree. It was kind of a mix of autobiography for me, but then also developmentally for him.<\/p>\n

\nHow much was scripted and how much was improvised along the way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was all scripted. But at the end of every year, I would tell everybody what\u2019s going on. The architecture was pretty fixed, but I had a year to write the next script, which is an incredible gift. I would spend that year thinking, OK, third grade \u2014 what went on that year in my life? And what\u2019s going on in the culture? I wanted the film to feel like a memory, and it\u2019s become that now. What would you remember of a childhood? You\u2019d probably remember the Harry Potter<\/em> midnight book releases. The Iraq War hovers over the whole thing, obviously, and the post-9\/11 America the film was born into is there. Looking back, I almost forgot how many devices there are \u2014 there\u2019s a lot of TV and a lot of images from the world.<\/p>\n

\nI\u2019d forgotten how dark it gets, with the abusive, alcoholic stepfather. That\u2019s the most dramatic swing the film takes, and yet it feels rooted in plausibility \u2014 you see the way these kids are terrified.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, but you get through it if you\u2019re lucky, and then life goes on. Looking at it again, alcohol kind of hovers over the whole movie \u2014 even his own choices. When you see him drinking in high school, it\u2019s like, oh, here we go. Madness kind of hovers around. Adulthood seemed volatile. There are some real potholes to step in in life, a lot of bad paths. Everyone\u2019s giving him advice and it\u2019s not always good, and there are a lot of bad examples of behavior. But even when he\u2019s hanging out with those older guys throwing blades around, talking such shit, being typical horrible teenage boys \u2014 I like to think Mason Jr. is looking at that going, \u201cOK, I\u2019m here, I\u2019m dealing, but I\u2019m choosing not to be like that.\u201d A lot of who we are is who we choose not to be. I even remember that feeling of not knowing what I wanted, but knowing what I didn\u2019t want. Maybe that\u2019s how we curate our lives.<\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s also really observant about American masculinity and its pressures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThe way that society kind of boosts you up, reinforcing masculinity and maleness \u2014 well, what is it? Is it sexual? Is it power? Is it aggression? What form does it take and what does it mean? That\u2019s a real thing. I was raised by a single mom with two older sisters, so there were a lot of men in my life who thought it was their job to help make a man out of me. Truth is, I had a very stable, wonderful dad \u2014 I just saw him on weekends, but they didn\u2019t know him. They thought I was this kid who needed a little male reinforcement, and my mom promoted that too. Some guy would take me on a motorcycle ride, and I\u2019m like, \u201cWhat am I doing? I don\u2019t need this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nLet\u2019s talk about the birthday scene where Ethan\u2019s Mason Sr. gives his son the \u201cBlack Album\u201d \u2014 a mixtape of the Beatles\u2019 solo work \u2014 after having sold the GTO he\u2019d promised him. It\u2019s not worth any money, but it has so much thought in it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThat was something Ethan actually was doing. Ethan and I have always pushed each other \u2014 \u201cThat means something. Everything means something. Let\u2019s build a scene around this, because it is thoughtful.\u201d And that idea that it\u2019s a combination of unique talents that makes the Beatles what they are. There\u2019s no one Beatle. It\u2019s the team. It\u2019s what makes them a true band. You can go on about that forever. The dad\u2019s clearly a lover of music.<\/p>\n

Read more Ross Douthat, Sebastian Junger, Gianna Toboni to Join CBS\u2019 \u201860 Minutes\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tI thought you were going to bring up his birthday with his East Texas grandparents \u2014 this happened to me. I call it the redneck bar mitzvah year. It wasn\u2019t a birthday, it was Christmas: I got my own Bible, the red letter edition, and my grandfather gave me a shotgun. I look back on that and it\u2019s kind of funny, but it\u2019s kind of affectionate, because it came from both their hearts \u2014 my step-grandparents, sweet people who accepted us lovingly into their family. That meant a lot to both of them. We can laugh at it, and I do, but there\u2019s something kind of sweet about it too.<\/p>\n

\nThe darkroom scene, where the photography teacher tells Mason he has talent but needs discipline, hits me to the core. That\u2019s a good male role model.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s just old enough to hear it then \u2014 he wouldn\u2019t have been two years before. We all had that: the sincere adult pulling you aside, the English teacher saying, \u201cHey, you\u2019re a good writer, but\u2026\u201d At the time, he\u2019s a little pissed at him. He\u2019s punishing him \u2014 \u201cYou\u2019re going to film the football game. I know you don\u2019t want to, but I\u2019m going to instill a little professionalism in you.\u201d Twelve years ago, I thought of it as another adult in your face telling you what to do. Now I was more moved by it. Those stand out. Those are important. You\u2019ve got to be ready to hear it, though.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe world tends to let you know what you\u2019re good at. If you can\u2019t sing, no one\u2019s handing you a mic. If you\u2019re not a good athlete, you don\u2019t get picked first. But in the arts it\u2019s a little vague, especially photography or writing \u2014 everybody can kind of do it, but who can do it well? It\u2019s easy to be unsure of your own talent. So those little shots in the arm from someone who actually knows what they\u2019re talking about \u2014 \u201cActually, you\u2019re pretty good; all these other knuckleheads aren\u2019t\u201d \u2014 that\u2019s a powerful thing, and you hope they use it judiciously. Part of that scene is something I might\u2019ve heard about my own talent, and part of it is definitely me talking to young people. I tell anybody who wants to do anything: it\u2019s going to take twice as long as you think, and you\u2019re going to have to work twice as hard as you think. But it\u2019ll be great. It\u2019ll be fun. It\u2019ll be your life.<\/p>\n

\nSomething you do better than anyone is dialogue. It has a plainness to it, and yet I\u2019m always engaged. How do you approach it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThe writer in me really emphasizes the structure and the ideas \u2014 I\u2019m a big believer in the architecture. But as far as the exact wording, I\u2019m kind of loose. I\u2019ll have a script, but then the actors and I workshop it. That\u2019s where I\u2019m very ear-based. I want to hear the actors say it. I\u2019m searching for some kind of realistic perfection in dialogue \u2014 that it feels at ease and yet is telling the story and communicating everything. I don\u2019t really believe in improvisation as most people think of it, where actors are just catching it live, because there\u2019s too much redundancy in that. It can only work in emotional moments; it can\u2019t help you tell your story as well as you need to. The dialogue dial-in goes hand in hand with the performance. It\u2019s only when it starts coming out of the actor\u2019s mouth that I perk up and go, \u201cHuh \u2014 am I believing this? What could make it better, more funny?\u201d That\u2019s the moment of truth for me.<\/p>\n

\nLet\u2019s talk about the most iconic dialogue in the film: Patricia\u2019s speech as Mason leaves for college, ending with \u201cI just thought there would be more.\u201d What do you remember about writing it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThat evolved. It\u2019s one of the final threads of the entire movie, so there\u2019s some pressure on that moment. In my own life, when I left for college, it was just my mom and me. She was sitting at a table smoking her cigarette and she didn\u2019t say too much \u2014 \u201cOK, bye.\u201d So I was playing it as a quiet moment between them. The summer before, we were in Greece, and Ethan Hawke was asking me about it \u2014 a scene he\u2019s not even in, but he\u2019s such a partner. He started pushing me: \u201cWell, what\u2019d you make the movie for? You might want to articulate that more.\u201d And I was like, \u201cYeah, maybe it does deserve more.\u201d I\u2019m giving him credit for that. Once that gate was open, it became an opportunity to purge, to say quite a bit.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy producer Kathleen\u2019s daughter had gone off to college the year before. She called her from the airport after dropping her off, still crying, and said, \u201cJust so you know, this is the worst day of my life.\u201d I said, \u201cYou told your kid that? It\u2019s supposed to be a great day.\u201d She goes, \u201cYeah, I told her.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cWow. Mothers can just lay it out.\u201d And Ethan Hawke\u2019s mom had said something similar to him: \u201cHere\u2019s my life, and what\u2019s next is my funeral.\u201d And I like the way Mason says, \u201cAren\u2019t you jumping ahead a few decades?\u201d It\u2019s a little funny and really sad and very true. Patricia had so much to say about all that. That was the evolution of a scene over a one-year period \u2014 from a quiet moment to a very big moment.<\/p>\n

\nHer character holds it together through the worst moments, but when she breaks, it\u2019s very moving. I think that\u2019s why she won the Oscar.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tShe handles it so well. At some point, Patricia\u2019s instincts are so right on, you just go with them. She\u2019s always right. Such a great collaborator, such a great actor \u2014 she\u2019s just so real in herself. Even vanity \u2014 she was like, \u201cI\u2019m getting older. No makeup this year. I want to look like shit in this scene. It\u2019s Saturday morning.\u201d How many actors approach it like that? She\u2019s deserved all good things.<\/p>\n

\nYou never made a secret of what you were doing, yet Boyhood<\/em> seemed to arrive fully formed. Everyone was blown away that this happened under their noses.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tEven in year one, someone got hold of it \u2014 it was on IMDb, there was a little article, and I was like, \u201cAh, I wanted to work in secret.\u201d But we flew under the radar. We weren\u2019t sending out press releases \u2014 what good is that? I\u2019d talk about it if anyone asked, but no one knew about it much. You had to be pretty close in to know. That was the fun thing. By the last year, I think Ethan was doing press for a movie he didn\u2019t like that much, so he started talking about Boyhood.<\/em> I\u2019m like, \u201cEthan! He blabbed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat fall it leaked onto film radars. There was one of those \u201c25 most anticipated films of 2014\u201d lists, and I was going through it thinking, \u201cWhat\u2019s coming out this year?\u201d It hadn\u2019t crossed my mind that we would even be on it. I got to the No. 1 most anticipated film, and suddenly it was Boyhood.<\/em> I was like, \u201cWhat the fuck?\u201d No one had seen it at that point. That\u2019s some crazy pressure. And then Sundance didn\u2019t announce it \u2014 it wasn\u2019t on the schedule. It just got announced two or three days before the screening. So even that lacked anticipation. That was probably a pretty good way to do it. It was a discovery. I still run into people \u2014 \u201cI was there at the Eccles for the premiere of Boyhood.<\/em>\u201d That started a year-long trek. I was touched by how much people connected with it. You never know.<\/p>\n

\nTell me about the music \u2014 starting with the first shot, young Mason lying on the grass, which became the poster, set to Coldplay\u2019s \u201cYellow.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHow many movies have the first image of the movie as the poster? Not many. I was always looking for music that fit a time and a place, and that was like, oh, early century \u2014 Coldplay, they were big. It\u2019s bookended at the end with Family of the Year\u2019s \u201cHero.\u201d They\u2019re kind of on the nose in a way, but kind of beautiful in their own way. Unlike most movies, where I know every song I want, I was trying to capture what kids were listening to, and I was out of the demographic. In the last couple of years, I\u2019d get people about the age of Ellar and Lorelei into my editing room, write down all the songs of that year, and have them talk about the ones everybody was listening to. A few songs came out of that. And I remember Arcade Fire\u2019s The Suburbs was a big album around then \u2014 that kind of infused the last part of the movie. I was happy to get two songs from that.<\/p>\n

\nWhat is Ellar up to now? Is he happy he did this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019d seen him about six months before the reunion \u2014 he lives in New Mexico now. He\u2019s a poet, and he acts a little bit, but he didn\u2019t have that driven personality of an actor. Maybe to his credit. He\u2019s a pretty chill guy, so thoughtful. I think he\u2019s happy he did it, but on him and Lorelei \u2014 it had been this fun 12-year project, and once it hit the public, it was kind of like, wow. They experienced something few ever have: people felt they really knew him. I remember being at screenings with Ellar where he\u2019s being hugged by grandparents as if he\u2019s their grandson. He doesn\u2019t know them, but they feel close to him. That\u2019s a weird way to suddenly have the world respond to you. It takes a lot of mental rigmarole to put it in a healthy place.<\/p>\n

\nThe film sits at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and is considered one of the greatest of the century. Watching it back, do you think about its future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was kind of relieved watching it. I was like, OK, that film\u2019s going to be relevant far, far into the future, just because of what it\u2019s about. Nothing changes. It hitched its wagon to these relationships that are eternal \u2014 parents, siblings, you to yourself. That is so damn universal. If you can resonate in that area, you\u2019re being truthful in some way, and that helps with your continued relevance, maybe.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s hard to talk about this movie \u2014 I stuttered around a little, because I haven\u2019t had to talk about it in 12 years. I have an updated view of it now, and I\u2019m having to incorporate new ideas of how I feel about it. I would\u2019ve thought my opinions at this age would be kind of fixed. Oh no, they are not. They fluctuate. Time never quits working on us.<\/p>\n

Read more Hunting a Myth in the Wisconsin Woods<\/a><\/p>\n