Fred Hechinger: On The White Lotus, his co-star’s big year on Fear Street

I had a question in mind at the end of HBO Max’s The white lotus end earlier this month, and had nothing to do with dead bodies or criminal acts. That was Teen Quinn playing on his Switch before the sea swept him away in a moment of ethereal metaphor?

“There are two real answers to that,” he says. white lotus actor Fred Hechinger with the utmost seriousness. “If someone wants to imagine a different game, I wish they could still do it, but the two real answers are: The legend of Zelda and Super Smash Bros. “

That makes sense. To be honest, everything Hechinger says makes sense, in a surprising way. Although he’s only 21 years old, the actor has clearly spent a lot of time, as actors do, thinking about The Human Condition and life man. He admits that typical “Gen Z” trends are not easy for him; Despite being part of the young triumvirate of actors Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O’Grady on set, he says 51-year-old creator Mike White found out about what most people talk about online and how people talk. people his age. Still, Hechinger has an old soul in a good way. On Zoom, his reverence for the actors and the craft has the effect of traveling back in time; You feel like maybe you’re talking to the next De Niro or Denzel. Consideration for work runs deep. He is also impressed to have an amazing year.

Hechinger grew up in New York, attended the legendary Santa Ana School (a breeding ground for young actors and musicians), and indulge in improvisation as a teenager at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater. Only in recent years did he finally enter the film and television industry, filming a series of projects that, due to the pandemic, all landed at once. In late 2020, he appeared on Steven Soderbergh’s Let everyone speak and the western directed by Tom Hanks World News. He started 2021 with the pulpy Netflix movie The woman in the window, then appeared in two of the three Fear Street movies and Barry Jenkins’ The underground railway. The weekly talk for The white lotus It solidifies him as the most promising “that guy” of 2021.

“It’s about three years of work that, by chance, have appeared at the same time,” he says. “I enjoy that kind of jumping and I love making movies, intensity is kind of fun, but it seems like I’m a bit more of a workhorse than I am!”

Chronologically Woman at the window it was Hechinger’s first big break. Director Joe Wright (Atonement) shot the movie for 20th Century Fox in 2018, but re-filmed and reissued forced release delays, and the pandemic led to 20th Century (acquired by Disney while the movie was in limbo) to sell. Woman at the window to Netflix. Hechinger played many characters in the meantime, from spaced teenagers like Quinn to a do-gooder puritan in Street of fear: 1666 But Wright’s theatrical sensitivity and commitment to honesty, even when considering such a cheesy character as a troubled child caught in a murder that may or may not be a hoax, helped Hechinger define himself as an actor.

Hechinger goes on and on rehearsing with Wright and, in the process, stifling research on the psychology of his roles. Compare working with the director to what Sidney Lumet did with his casts in the glory days of New York cinema. Few could make the reference, and it is indicative of Hechinger’s tastes leaning toward an era that most of his contemporaries might overlook. He cites Edward G. Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, Walter Houston, and Buster Keaton as idols.

But Hechinger is not some kind of artistic ludite either. He is a thinker, therefore he is a doer. You don’t need to disappear onto paper, you just need to understand it, and in the Gen Z era, that means reading all the applicable research at your disposal. If you’re starring in a 17th-century slasher, you’re still studying the dialects and practices of ordinary people. None of that method acting things. For him it’s about trust.

“I enjoy the preparation period,” he says. “It’s where I can channel a lot of my nerves. To think of every possible thing [is important] because then you can get that out of your system. You can be free to do what’s best for that moment once you’re on set. ”

Improvising at UCB only fueled those instincts and their connections. Theater student and Silicon Valley Star Zach Woods finally pulled him out of class to appear in his 2020 short film, David, with Will Ferrell. And Natasha Rothwell, who plays Belinda, the spa attendant in The white lotus, was actually her first improv teacher. “So it was full circle,” he says, “and it was one of the best experiences of my life.”

Quinn stands out as potentially one of Hechinger’s most challenging roles: the guy is rich, he’s rebellious, he would rather play Switch than dive, even though he’s a pretty normal teenager in demeanor. But when you look at the beauty of the Hawaiian coast, something clicks. For Hechinger, understanding those moments came from White’s scripts and not giving too much thought to what might be going through Quinn’s head. But when I ask him if there is a quality that can separate young actors like himself from the old guard, he turns to an existential dread that his contemporaries have lived with in a clearer sense throughout their lives. And it makes sense why Quinn might find himself lost at sea.

“The main generational issue I think about is the impending climate crisis, the end of the world,” Hechinger says, acknowledging that he’s not even sure if people his age can call it a generational fear. At 21, he is now in a place to discover the relationship between the classics he loves and the emerging new age of the creatives of his generation. “There are definitely many more important questions that I don’t fully know the answer to and that I am working on that have to do with what is different now than in the past. I think that cinema is a fascinating medium because it is very young; Obviously there is virtual reality, but of the really popular art forms, it is still one of the youngest. But also since more than 100 years have passed, the film is also in a place where it is always in conversation with things from the past. ”

Hechinger had an amazing year, but we may not see him again for a while, he says as he talks to filmmakers about what the next might be, nothing is set in stone. But he’s hungry for whatever and eventually to tell his own stories.

“I really want to do things that only I can do. And then I have that mixture of adoration for the cinema in capital letters, and what it has given me as an individual and what it has given me as a lonely person who felt more connected; I felt that I could understand life much better and in a much happier way through it. Then at the same time, I feel this constant need to twist it and do something that is only true for this moment, and for me and for these people that I know, and for these issues that are really urgent. ”