“Peter Hujar’s Day” reunites writer-director Ira Sachs with his “Passages” star Ben Whishaw, and Sachs revealed at TheWrap’s Sundance Studio presented by World of Hyatt that his latest effort began while he was still making that searing 2023 relationship drama.
“I was working in Paris with Ben on ‘Passages,’ and I saw a book in a bookstore called ‘Peter Hujar’s Day,’ and it was a publication of a transcript of a conversation that took place in 1974 between the photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda Rosencrantz,” Sachs recalled. “I picked it up and read it in a cafe, and by the time I finished it, I thought this would be a really interesting project or film or a piece of art to make with Ben specifically.”
While Whishaw said he “enjoyed” the original transcript that Sachs gave him, it wasn’t until he actually saw how the filmmaker wanted to adapt “Peter Hujar’s Day” that he felt like he discovered its potential.
“I really didn’t see it until Ira sent me the script, probably a year later, and then I really could see that it was something,” Whishaw shared. “As a text, it had so much that was fascinating and rich and interesting for an actor to engage with.”
Unlike Whishaw, “Peter Hujar’s Day” marks Rebecca Hall’s first collaboration with Sachs. The actress, who stars in the film as Rosencrantz opposite Whishaw’s Hujar, took it upon herself to reach out to Sachs two years ago. She had no idea when she did so whether or not he even have a project in mind for her.
“I sort of pestered Ira around the time of ‘Passages,’ because I was a fan and wanted to have a reason to work with him, or just know him,” Hall admitted.
The actress ended up being one-half of a film that is, like the book that inspired it, one long conversation between two friends. Some filmmakers might have been daunted by the constraints that presented, but not Sachs.
“[I thought] those boundaries and limitations could actually make the moment or the film bigger. To contain it actually made it valuable,” the writer-director said. His sentiment was shared by Whishaw and Hall, both of whom found common themes about art and creation within their characters’ prolonged exchange.
“I really loved how it just gave time to how it feels to be an artist and the struggle of being an artist. I know that sounds sort of pretentious, but I don’t feel it is,” Whishaw confessed. “When you watch the film, you feel like there’s something this man is seeking to get through his art, and even if he’s not talking directly about that, that everything really is about this desire to capture something in his work — and the pain of when you feel you failed.” The film, Hall added, explores “our general need to capture every moment as it goes by.”
This is because “Peter Hujar’s Day” is ultimately more than just a conversation. “It’s a portrait of art making,” the Sachs observed. “It’s very hard to make a film about an artist. It’s hard to see the process. What is the process? Somehow, being inside this particular text, you begin to understand the nuance of the decisions made, the anxiety felt, the insecurity, the moments of epiphany, the possibility of epiphany, the desire for epiphany.”
Watch TheWrap’s full interview with the “Peter Hujar’s Day” team above.
