Hedges admits he’s taken aback by the success of Manchester by the Sea, pointing out, “It’s really interesting to be 20 years old and to have your wildest dreams come true. It’s sort of like, where do you go from here?”
He adds that it’s far more likely for his career to go south than to continue succeeding. He explains, “I listened to Ethan Hawke in an interview recently. He did Dead Poets Society at my age, and he was saying that after that movie came out, his career was perfectly set up to just be one long tumble after that film, and not in a good way.”
One of his acting roles — a seventh grade production of Nicholas Nickleby — nearly ended Hedges’ career before it even started because of stage fright. He recalls, “I ran outside and into my Mom’s arms and burst into tears. She walked me around the block and said: ‘You don’t have to do it. But just take a day to think about it.’” While he changed his mind and ended up doing the play, he was still nervous. He explains, “Sure enough, every single day in the wings before I went on, my face turned bright red. But I persevered.”
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