# Boyhood - Unique Film uses same actors over 12 year period. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624 "2014-07-20T21:00:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/1 "2014-07-20T21:00:54Z")
I doubt this has ever been done before. Ellar Coltrane was cast in this role at six and continued until he was 18. There weren’t that many actual filming days. It was just spread out over twelve years. I hope the film is good. It would suck putting 12 years of your life in a crappy film. 😛 > **[The boy who endured 12 years growing up in a Hollywood movie: The star of...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2698648/The-boy-endured-12-years-growing-Hollywood-movie-The-star-summers-hit-film-began-age-six-finished-18-But-real-Truman-Show-story-amazing.html)** > > Boyhood, by director Richard Linklater, has garnered five-star reviews and is tipped to win an Oscar following the most protracted filming schedule in movie history. > [@](#): > > Ellar Coltrane, the leading actor, was just six years old when he was recruited to play ‘Mason Jr’, the central character whose childhood, adolescence and departure to university are captured in minute, sometimes excruciating, detail in documentary style. > > Coltrane was filmed throughout his childhood, a 12-year schedule that only ended at the age of 18. > > So, extraordinarily, a cast including stars Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, Ellar’s on-screen parents, agreed to meet once a year and pick up from where they left off. > [@](#): > > The cast met just four or five days a year while Ellar was young. Later they would gather for a month at a time, with Ellar describing the occasions as like ‘summer camp’. > > In total there were 39 shooting days, although between times Linklater and Ellar would meet and talk about his day to day life so it could be incorporated into the film. > > Much of the dialogue is improvised and no one, including the director, knew in what direction the storyline would go. > > Almost uniquely for a Hollywood movie, wigs and make-up were banned and the actors wore their own clothes. So tight was the commitment to realism that is began to affect their private lives, too, as Patricia Arquette explains: ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/2 "2014-07-20T21:04:23Z")
Ethan Hawke discusses his role as the dad in the film. > **[Ethan Hawke’s a cool cat, in more ways than one](https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/ethan-hawkes-a-cool-cat-in-more-ways-than-one/article_17e32a53-bddc-5ef1-a667-597dc90656b6.html)** > > Making one movie for 12 years with the same director would seem strange to almost anybody but Boyhood’s Ethan Hawke. > [@](#): > > Making one movie for 12 years with the same director would seem strange to almost anybody but Ethan Hawke. > > The lanky Texas-born actor worked for a dozen years on Boyhood, opening Friday, the landmark life drama written and directed by his friend Richard Linklater. Hawke devoted most of his 30s and part of his 40s to the task, while also making other films. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/3 "2014-07-20T21:06:39Z")
The film lives up to the hype and then some. Easily the best film released this year, but also one of the best films I’ve ever seen. It’s about how the accumulation of mundane moments in life make us who we are, not huge “cinematic” changes, so some people are already complaining that it’s boring, but that misses the point entirely. It’s a 3 hour Linklater film, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/4 "2014-07-21T01:34:36Z")
I can’t wait until I can see this film; it sounds amazing. Linklater misses the mark for me more often than he hits it, but this sounds like it’s worth a chance. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/5 "2014-07-21T01:52:19Z")
Note that there’s an important mistake in this article: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...y-amazing.html](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...y-amazing.html) The film budget was $200,000 per year over 12 years for a total of $2,400,000. The article claims that the budget was £120,000 (which is $200,000) total. Here’s the box office and budget page for the film in Wikipedia: > **[Boyhood (2014) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1065073/?ref_=tt_dt_bus)** > > Boyhood: Directed by Richard Linklater. With Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Elijah Smith, Lorelei Linklater. The life of Mason, from early childhood to his arrival at college. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/6 "2014-07-21T01:59:01Z")
It’s low budget in comparison with most Hollywood films. Hats off to the actors for making a 12 year commitment. I’m looking forward to seeing this one. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/7 "2014-07-21T02:02:37Z")
Makes me think of the Seven Up series that’s been interviewing the same set of children once every seven years since 1964. It’s a truly fascinating series of documentaries. Neil, in particular, was surprising. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/8 "2014-07-21T05:15:00Z")
Saw it today. I thought it was phenomenal. Best film I’ve seen in years. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/9 "2014-07-21T06:16:43Z")
Of movies that have at least 100 reviews, it is now the highest reviewed/rated film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes, and holds a 99/100 on metacritic, which is essentially unheard of. I had never heard of it until this thread! This isn’t normally something I’d ever want to go and watch… but with such universal acclaim, I think I really need to see this. ---
**Author:** ![BrassyPhrase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@BrassyPhrase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrassyPhrase)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/10 "2014-07-21T06:36:37Z")
We went to see it and loved it. I don’t want to rave too much over it b/c that will alter expectations. It was sweet and moving and funny and sad and I’ll probably have to see it again. When the movie ended, I thought of that line from Huckleberry Finn about how it had to stop then, because if it kept going, it would start being the story of a man, rather than the story of a boy. ( I may have mangled that a bit.) An odd amazing experience to watch that little boy grow up. (Arquette and Hawke are great too, and it’s easy to forget their work in it.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/11 "2014-07-21T07:09:45Z")
To a certain extent, we saw something like this with the Harry Potter franchise. It was a series of movies rather than a single one. But they cast actors at young ages (Emma Watson was 9 and Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint were 11) for a series that was filmed over the course of ten years. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/12 "2014-07-21T19:48:49Z")
I’ve seen _Harry Potter_ mentioned in a couple of reviews, but there’s really no comparison. The audience also aged 10 years over the course of the series, so it didn’t have anywhere near the force of this one. The only vaguely similar experience would be if _7 Up_ through _21 Up_ had been released as a single film, but even then, the difference between the documentary format and a scripted film would be pretty glaring. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/13 "2014-07-26T03:41:30Z")
Just tonight I’m seeing ads for this movie. What a unique idea. I am looking forward to seeing this, although I’ll probably not see it in a theatre. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2014, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/14 "2014-07-26T07:19:36Z")
drewtwo99 writes: \> Of movies that have at least 100 reviews, it is now the highest reviewed/rated film \> of all time on Rotten Tomatoes, Not that it terribly matters, but no, it isn’t: > **[Boyhood](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/boyhood)** > > The joys and pitfalls of growing up are seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), his parents (Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke) and his sister (Lorelei Linklater). Vignettes, filmed with the same cast over the course of 12 years,... > **[The Wizard of Oz](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_wizard_of_oz_1939)** > > When a tornado rips through Kansas, Dorothy (Judy Garland) and her dog, Toto, are whisked away in their house to the magical land of Oz. They follow the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City to meet the Wizard, and en route they meet a Scarecrow... So _Boyhood_ gets 154 fresh reviews out of 156 and _The Wizard of Oz_ gets 100 fresh reviews out of 101, which makes _The Wizard of Oz_ at 99.01% higher than _Boyhood_ at 98.72%. And, of course, older movies get fewer reviews than new movies on Rotten Tomatoes. Some new movies have over 200 reviews, while _The Wizard of Oz_ is the only pre-Internet film with over 100 reviews, I believe. _Citizen Kane_ has 66 fresh reviews out of 66, for instance. \> and holds a 99/100 on metacritic, which is essentially unheard of. Old movies don’t get rated on metacritic, right, which means that it’s not competing against all movies? Yes, I realize that being rated in the neighborhood of _The Wizard of Oz_ and _Citizen Kane_ makes _Boyhood_ really good. I just wanted to make it clear how Rotten Tomatoes and metacritic work. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/15 "2014-08-01T23:12:17Z")
I saw it the other day with my nieces- aged 19 and 17. We loved it! If you can see this movie with people who are close in age to the lead actor, I highly recommend it. I hadn’t thought of it beforehand, but it really adds to the experience, just noticing the things my nieces responded to as they were sitting next to me. The 19 year old is going off to college in a month, she and her sister were watching a movie that traced the timeline of their own growing up experience. Just sitting next to them during the screening made for an extra powerful experience. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/16 "2014-08-01T23:27:47Z")
I’m wondering how the filmmakers kept the young actor to themselves all of these years. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/17 "2014-08-01T23:41:23Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > I’m wondering how the filmmakers kept the young actor to themselves all of these years. Not so surprising to me. It’s not like this was a child actor whose parents had him camped out in L.A. for pilot season every year. Linklater stays based in Texas and, even with all his successes, still takes an indie approach to film making. This was a project that was put together with close personal relationships. From interviews, I get the impression this kid’s parents were into the idea because Linklater was committed to this kind of relationship. I don’t think they were stage parents who had goals of launching their child into showbiz. The actor himself said the experience was like “summer camp”. Seems he’s lived an entirely normal life with this as a pretty noninvasive extracurricular. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/18 "2014-08-01T23:45:50Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > And, of course, older movies get fewer reviews than new movies on Rotten Tomatoes. Some new movies have over 200 reviews, while _The Wizard of Oz_ is the only pre-Internet film with over 100 reviews, I believe. _Citizen Kane_ has 66 fresh reviews out of 66, for instance. > > \> and holds a 99/100 on metacritic, which is essentially unheard of. > > Old movies don’t get rated on metacritic, right, which means that it’s not competing against all movies? Yes, I realize that being rated in the neighborhood of _The Wizard of Oz_ and _Citizen Kane_ makes _Boyhood_ really good. I just wanted to make it clear how Rotten Tomatoes and metacritic work. It’s also important to note that the reviews for old films are not contemporaneous–they are modern reviews looking back and “reviewing” films that are already accepted as classics. Rest assured, if they took reviews from 1939-1941, neither title would rate nearly so high. That’s hindsight and the canon talking. ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/19 "2014-08-02T00:47:55Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > I’ve seen _Harry Potter_ mentioned in a couple of reviews, but there’s really no comparison. The audience also aged 10 years over the course of the series, so it didn’t have anywhere near the force of this one. The only vaguely similar experience would be if _7 Up_ through _21 Up_ had been released as a single film, but even then, the difference between the documentary format and a scripted film would be pretty glaring. The only vaguely similar experience? How about Linklater’s own _Before_ trilogy, also starring Hawke? The characters aged nine years between movies, just as there was actually nine years between the movies in real life. It’s even mentioned in the interview with Hawke linked in the second post of this thread. I’m not denigrating _Boyhood_, just pointing out that Linklater has used similar ideas in other works. I can’t speak to the audience experience since I haven’t yet seen _Boyhood_. I certainly plan to see it. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2014, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624/20 "2014-08-02T12:07:50Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Not so surprising to me. It’s not like this was a child actor whose parents had him camped out in L.A. for pilot season every year. Linklater stays based in Texas and, even with all his successes, still takes an indie approach to film making. This was a project that was put together with close personal relationships. From interviews, I get the impression this kid’s parents were into the idea because Linklater was committed to this kind of relationship. I don’t think they were stage parents who had goals of launching their child into showbiz. > > The actor himself said the experience was like “summer camp”. Seems he’s lived an entirely normal life with this as a pretty noninvasive extracurricular. Makes sense. For that matter, maybe they wouldn’t have minded had he become a little bit famous part way thru that timeframe. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boyhood-unique-film-uses-same-actors-over-12-year-period/693624.md?page=2)