Lucas Hedges

Hedges at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival

During a middle-school play production, Hedges was spotted by the casting director for Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012), who eventually cast him in the film as Redford.[16][17] He went on to play small roles in the comedy-drama Arthur Newman (2012),[18] Jason Reitman's romance Labor Day (2013),[19] and Terry Gilliam's science fiction film The Zero Theorem (2013).[20][21] In 2014, Hedges had a minor role in Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel and played the son of Jeremy Renner's character in Michael Cuesta's drama Kill the Messenger, which was based on CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking.[17][22] The latter led the critic Todd McCarthy to rank him as "very good," and Rodrigo Perez of IndieWire considered him to be the "surprise stand-out of the cast."[23][24] In 2015, he was cast in the NBC miniseries The Slap, which was adapted from the Australian series of the same name.[25]

Hedges next joined the cast of Kenneth Lonergan's independent drama Manchester by the Sea (2016). In it, he played Patrick Chandler, a 16-year-old boy dealing with the recent death of his father, who is left in the care of his unwilling and troubled uncle (played by Casey Affleck). The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.[26] Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph wrote, "Hedges, phenomenal, fights off every cliché of 'troubled' teenagerhood and gives us a gruff, sympathetic boy with a tearaway sex drive."[27] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said his performance was "glorious" and added that he "makes a tremendous troubled 16-year-old."[28] It earned over $78 million against its $9 million budget.[29] For his work, Hedges won a Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer, and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, among others.[17][30]

Hedges in 2017

The following year, Hedges made his stage debut as the lead in the Trip Cullman-directed off-Broadway play Yen, penned by the playwright Anna Jordan.[31] The production ran from February 19 to March 4 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.[32] Taking note of his performance as an aggressive and violent teenager who shares a troubled relationship with his half-brother, Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote that he "delivers an expert anatomy of an adolescent on the edge of explosion".[33] Hedges was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play and won the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Debut Performance.[34][35][36][37] Also in 2017, Hedges had supporting roles in two films—Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird and Martin McDonagh's crime drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, both of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.[38][39] The cast of the latter film were awarded with the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast.[40]

Hedges had three film releases in 2018. He played the supporting role of a teenager who violently bullies his younger brother (played by Sunny Suljic) in Mid90s, which marked the directorial debut of Jonah Hill.[41] Eric Kohn of IndieWire wrote, "Hedges, quickly becoming the most impressive actor of his generation, buries himself in the gruff, unhappy role of an angst-riddled teen."[42] Hedges played the lead role in his two other 2018 films—Boy Erased and Ben Is Back.[43][44] In the former, based on the eponymous memoir, he played the son of a Baptist pastor who is forced to take part in a gay conversion therapy program. Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman played his parents. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Stephen Farber noted that Hedges "carries the entire show and is alternately frightened, bewildered and defiant. There isn't a false note in his performance."[45] For Boy Erased, Hedges received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama.[46] In Ben Is Back, a drama directed by his father and co-starring Julia Roberts, he played the titular character, a drug addict who returns home after spending time in rehab. Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood praised both Roberts's and Hedges's performances, adding that they "are pitch perfect together, never striking a false note in demonstrating the everlasting bond between a mother and son."[47]

Also in 2018, Hedges made his first appearance on Broadway in a revival of Kenneth Lonergan's play The Waverly Gallery, alongside Elaine May, at the John Golden Theatre.[48] He played the role of a teenager coping with his grandmother's Alzheimer's disease. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune credited him for effectively conveying the "frustration family members feel when one of their own starts to decline."[49] Honey Boy, a drama penned by and co-starring Shia LaBeouf about his childhood and relationship with his father, marked Hedges's first film release of 2019.[50] Hedges and Noah Jupe played Otis Lort, a character based on LaBeouf, at different ages. Reviewing the film for Entertainment Weekly, Leah Greenblatt wrote that Hedges "doesn’t seem to have found a role yet he can’t fully inhabit; his Otis is raw and furious, and genuinely funny."[51] He next took on a supporting part in Trey Edward Shults' Waves, a drama about the emotional journey of a suburban family,[52] which led Peter Debruge of Variety to consider it "an impactful reminder of how much the actor can bring to a smaller role".[53]

In 2020, Hedges appeared in the miniseries Home Movie: The Princess Bride for Quibi to raise money for World Central Kitchen.[54] Also that year, he starred alongside Michelle Pfeiffer in the black comedy French Exit,[55] and was part of the ensemble cast of Steven Soderbergh's comedy film Let Them All Talk.[56] In his review for the former film, IndieWire's David Ehrlich was appreciate of Hedges' "subdued but strikingly thoughtful performance".[57] The following year, he appeared in an episode of the FX anthology series The Premise.[58]

Hedges took a small break from acting to focus on writing, and returned to the stage in a 2023 West End theatre production of Brokeback Mountain at @sohoplace, in which he starred as Ennis Del Mar opposite Mike Faist's Jack Twist.[59] Comparing his performance to Heath Ledger's portrayal of Del Mar in the 2005 film of the same name, theatre critic Matt Wolf of The New York Times wrote that Hedges "may not have the immediate physical command that Ledger had onscreen, but he shares his late predecessor’s furrowed brow and a sense of roiling anguish".[60]