Lucas Hedges

Lucas Hedges is an American actor born on December 12, 1996, in Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up in the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill. He is the son of screenwriter and director Peter Hedges and poet and actress Susan Bruce, and has an older brother, Simon. His paternal grandfather, the Reverend Robert Boyden Hedges, served as an Episcopal minister, while his maternal grandmother, Narcissa Titman, worked as a theatre director and lecturer. As a child, Hedges appeared as an extra in his father's film Dan in Real Life (2007), though his line was removed during post-production. He attended Saint Ann's School and completed the Cherubs Theatre Program at Northwestern University's National High School Institute before studying theatre at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from 2015 to 2016.

Hedges entered film through a casting discovery during a middle-school play, which led to his role as Redford in Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012). He followed that with small parts in Arthur Newman (2012), Labor Day (2013), The Zero Theorem (2013), and Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He also appeared in Michael Cuesta's Kill the Messenger (2014) and the NBC miniseries The Slap (2015). His breakthrough came with Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea (2016), in which he played Patrick Chandler, a sixteen-year-old navigating his father's death while in the care of his uncle, portrayed by Casey Affleck. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and earned over $78 million against a $9 million budget. For the role, Hedges received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.

His stage career began in 2017 with the off-Broadway production of Yen, directed by Trip Cullman and written by Anna Jordan, in which he played an aggressive and violent teenager. The production ran from February 19 to March 4 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. He received a nomination for the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play and won the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Debut Performance. Also in 2017, he appeared in supporting roles in Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, both of which received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture. The cast of Three Billboards received the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast.

In 2018, Hedges made his Broadway debut in a revival of Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery at the John Golden Theatre, appearing alongside Elaine May. He played a teenager managing his grandmother's decline from Alzheimer's disease. That same year, he starred in Boy Erased, playing the son of a Baptist pastor compelled to participate in a gay conversion therapy program, with Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman portraying his parents. The role earned him nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama and the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He also appeared in Mid90s, the directorial debut of Jonah Hill, and in Ben Is Back, a drama directed by his father and co-starring Julia Roberts, in which he played a drug addict returning home after rehabilitation.

In 2019, Hedges appeared in Honey Boy, written by and co-starring Shia LaBeouf, playing an older version of Otis Lort, a character based on LaBeouf. He also had a supporting role in Trey Edward Shults' Waves. In 2020, he starred opposite Michelle Pfeiffer in the black comedy French Exit and appeared in Steven Soderbergh's ensemble comedy Let Them All Talk. He also participated in the Quibi miniseries Home Movie: The Princess Bride, produced to raise funds for World Central Kitchen. The following year, he appeared in an episode of the FX anthology series The Premise. In 2023, Hedges took on the role of Ennis Del Mar in a West End theatre production of Brokeback Mountain.