When Richard Linklater released “Boyhood” in 2014, moviegoers had never seen anything quite like it. Filmed over the space of 12 years, the coming-of-age classic followed a Texas family living through divorce, moving and growing up, with the cast returning at intervals to film episodes as the children grew up. The groundbreaking result came thisclose to winning the Oscar for best picture, with Patricia Arquette, who played the family’s mom, winning best supporting actress, and Ethan Hawke, who played the father, nominated for supporting actor. But what happened to the boy of “Boyhood” — Ellar Coltrane — and Lorelei Linklater, who played his sister?
Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter, is a painter and actress who has appeared in several independent films since “Boyhood.” Coltrane, now 31, says he lives “in the middle of nowhere,” and is pursuing several interests: He’s a volunteer fireman, he’s doing EMT training and is gets involved in occasional independent films. But though he’s had a few roles such starring in the indie “Shoplifters of the World Unite,” he’s not driven to pursue film and TV stardom. “I’ve moved on,” he says.
Unlike many child actors who experienced too much fame too early, Coltrane thinks he was spared that kind of pressure because the world didn’t see the finished product until he was 18 — although even then the amount of attention was somewhat overwhelming.
Independent Film Company’s 12th anniversary release of “Boyhood” (representing the 12 years of filming) is currently playing in more than 100 theaters across the U.S. and in Canada through Mongrel, with a special filmed Q&A included this week. Additional live Q&As and special screenings will roll out throughout August.
Coltrane looked back on the experience of shooting “Boyhood” over 12 years, remembering the fun, scary and embarrassing moments along the way.
Ethan Hawke, left, and Ellar Coltrane onstage during the “Boyhood” 12-Year reunion Q&A in Austin.
Kelly Zhu
As a child, you went to theater classes through Zach Theater in Austin, and then met your aunt’s agent who became your agent. How did you end up auditioning for “Boyhood”? Do you remember much about what they told you when you were just 6 years old?
What I remember is meeting Richard. Both of my parents are performers, so I think they were definitely supportive and understood the idea of me going into performing arts, but it wasn’t something that they set up or pushed me into. It all just kind of happened. I remember them telling me about who Richard was to them, being artists in Austin. They knew a lot of people that were in “Slacker” and he was a real hometown hero. I remember them telling me, this is really cool, this is different than the other auditions you’ve gone to. I don’t know how many callbacks it was, but it was several, and there was no script at that point, so it wasn’t at all a traditional audition where I’m reading sides. I think he was just kind of getting to know me more than anything.
Do you think he had other kids he was considering?
It was an open casting call, so there probably hundreds of kids that they were considering. There were a number of homeschool kids that were being considered specifically, because he knew it would be easier to work with a kid who didn’t have to be in school five days a week. I remember in one of the callbacks, he asked me to bring in some of my art, my drawings. The piece of the drawing that I brought in was on the back of a poster for a band called Joe Rockhead that my dad played in, in the ’80s and ’90s in Austin. And Richard was a fan, and so I remember him looking turning the page around and being like, “What is this? Why do you have this poster? And I’m like, that’s my dad’s old band.
When did it dawn on you that you were going to keep returning every year, every couple years? Like, did you understand that at first, or did it take a little while to really get that?
I was a smart kid. I understood as much as a 6-year-old can. I understood that I would be returning every year, but there was no way for me to comprehend what 12 years is, or what that really represents in my life. It was much later, once I was 17 or 18, that I started to understand like how just how significant it was in my life. It was fun. It was like a summer camp. It never felt like a burden really.
What was working with Richard like? Were you ever scared or felt pressured?
Richard is very much an actor’s director, and he and Ethan had such an industrious working relationship at that time, writing the “Before” movies and they had a really powerful collaborative dynamic that they had built together, and it was really wonderful to be invited into that, and be taught how to partake in that process of writing collaboratively.
Did you get to improvise?
There was very extensive workshopping every year. There was some improvisation in the writing room, but more so just a lot of requests for my input. So even if I wasn’t improvising in the moment, I was often using my words, and using pieces of my experience and what I was going through in the different years, and I was encouraged to manipulate my dialogue to be more natural for myself to speak as a child.
There were a lot of pretty tense scenes — do you remember being worried about the adults arguing, particularly with the alcoholic stepfather?
I grew up in a pretty tumultuous household, so it didn’t seem shocking at all to me. That was kind of just how adults were. The big one was the violence at the dinner table with Marco’s character. I remember that moment, with the dinner plate and just how viscerally scary that was. Even though I knew it was acting, and everybody laughs in between takes. There was a lot that was done, probably for our benefit, for the kids to try to break up the tension, and I think we didn’t do very many takes of that.
I rewatched the film for the first time in a number of years a couple weeks ago at the Austin Film Society reunion screening, and there were lots of things that I was stricken by that landed differently now. That scene definitely affected me more watching it than it ever has before, and I was a lot more aware of myself as a vulnerable child experiencing this traumatic thing. Even within the artifice of the film, it’s still scary.
Was there ever a time you wanted to quit? I know Lorelei wanted to be written out at one point.
No, not at all. I mean, when it released, when I became famous and was going around doing a million Q&A’s and parties, I didn’t enjoy that part so much. But I never wavered in production. I loved it. It was a really wonderful experience for me.
You said it was like summer camp, did you play with the other kids and make friends?
Really just Lorelei. All the other kid characters are so transient. More so Richard and Ethan and Patricia. I was such an odd kid. I I didn’t have a lot of friends my own age, even in my personal life, just being homeschooled and being raised by the arts community in Austin. Also Rodney Becker, the production designer. I went on to work under him in the art department for a number of years after “Boyhood” released.
What was it like as you got to be a teenager, since teenagers are figuring out so much stuff — were you ever self-conscious about growing up on-screen?
I was a pretty cocky teenager. Like around 14 or 15, when I have the bangs and everything, that was a pretty awkward phase. I think I was pretty self-conscious. But even still, with the kissing, I’m kissing Megan Devine in that in that episode, and I was pretty confident in that. One of the funny things about that phase of the film for me is that I was a really wild teenager, I was getting into a lot of trouble, and that is so peripheral in the film. It’s just kind of implied that there’s other stuff going on that we’re not seeing, that this person is experimenting with drugs and whatever else, but it’s not really in the film.
But I do remember I showed up to set probably when I was 17, very high on marijuana one time, and was extremely anxious and self-conscious, and that scene is terrible. Needless to say that scene did not make it into the final cut. I never did that again.
Was Linklater’s idea for Mason to be into photography, or yours?
That was me. It’s kind of funny because (unit photographer) Matt Lankes, rest in peace, outside of set, he gave me photography lessons and was a big part of that developing in my life before I was ever in the film. My interest in photography definitely was fueled, if not initially inspired, by being on set and watching Matt work. He made the book and so we would do those portraits every year and he was always working with antique film equipment and his work practice was very intricate, and I found that really inspiring.
What do you think about this experience of making a movie over so many years? It’s pretty unusual.
It’s fantastic. It’s magical. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of Richard’s new long-term project (“Merrily We Roll Along”), and if other people try to emulate that. Because it’s a gimmick in a way, and it also very much works.
It’s also kind of a crazy thing to sign a child up for.
Exactly — as smart as a kid as you were, how could you have really known what you were agreeing to?
I think I did pretty well in terms of navigating that and coming out the other side not too damaged, but it’s a lot. Being a child actor is always a strange thing. A big saving grace for me, in that context of being a child actor, and later interacting with the Harry Potter kids and other people who starred in a long-term project or started a career around the same time, for them there was something released to the world also in childhood. I didn’t have to experience that and I am grateful for that, because when I did experience celebrity, it was a lot. It allowed me to have the experience of acting and learning to do all these things and being on set. It allowed me to avoid being a child star, which is really difficult for a lot of people. I have a lot of compassion for people who really struggle with fame early in life.
Catch us up on what kind of things you’re pursuing now?
I live in the middle of nowhere, and I’m pretty far away from film. I’ve acted in a couple of short films. One called “El Fantasma,” which we filmed in Mexico City, where I play Lee Harvey Oswald, that’s really cool. And then I did a film in El Paso two years ago, a short film called “So, Who Was It This Time?” I’ve become kind of integrated with the independent film community in El Paso, which is really wonderful. I’m really inspired by the energy there and what my friends are up to. It reminds me of Austin 20 years ago. Really, in my life I’ve moved on. I do manual labor, and I’m a volunteer firefighter, and I’m working on my EMT license right now. But being back in Austin at the AFS event, interacting with film people again, I am missing being on set, missing collaborating.
I do very well collaborating with a director who has a passion project. When I can get into that head space with an artist and work closely with them to figure out how I can express what they’re trying to express, I think I can do really good work. But just showing up on a big set with a million producers as an actor, I don’t know how to do that. I was never really trained as an actor. I was trained by Richard and Ethan as a collaborator and part of the machine of the film. So I’m hoping for more small, independent passion projects that I can be a part of, because I have a lot to offer.
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