Richard Linklater’s Boyhood was one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the decade. This chronicle of a boy’s childhood, from little kid to college freshman, is one of just 11 movies to earn a perfect 100 on Metascore, and the only one to receive such a score upon its initial release.
This movie took 12 years to make, as Linklater waited for his actors to grow up in real time, rather than casting a bunch of different actors to play the characters at different ages. The result is a truly unique work of cinema. Here are 10 fascinating details from the making of Boyhood.
Boyhood Was Shot Over 12 Years
The production of Boyhood lasted 12 years, from May 2002 to August 2013. Although these 12 years comprised of roughly 4,000 days, the Boyhood team only shot for a total of 45 days. This is a pretty normal amount of time for a feature film shoot, but it’s usually not spread over more than a decade.
Ellar Coltrane, the lead actor, was seven years old when filming began and 19 years old when it was complete. When shooting started, Richard Linklater was calling the movie The Untitled 12 Year Project. Then, it went by 12 Years. Eventually, Linklater changed the title to Boyhood to avoid confusion with another acclaimed Oscar film, 12 Years a Slave.
Samantha Is Played By Richard Linklater’s Daughter
Mason’s older sister, Samantha, was played by Lorelei Linklater, the daughter of director Richard Linklater, because she’d been pestering him to put her in one of his movies for years.
After three or four years of shooting Boyhood, she got sick of the commitment and asked her dad to kill off her character. He refused to do that, because it would be way too dark and violent for this movie. During the remaining eight or nine years of production, she eventually enjoyed shooting Boyhood again.
The Studio Gave Richard Linklater The Budget Little By Little Across The 12-Year Shoot
The budget for Boyhood was $2.4 million, but IFC Films couldn’t legally give it all to Richard Linklater upfront because it would technically contract him to 12 years of work, which is prohibited. So, they gave him $200,000 a year to shoot the new scenes.
One year, they forgot to give Linklater the money, and by the time they realized the mistake, it was too late to pay up, because they’d closed their books for the year. Linklater was able to fund that year’s filming himself with insurance money he’d received from his house burning down. Boyhood ended up grossing over $57 million worldwide when it finally hit theaters.
Mason, Sr. Was Based On Richard Linklater And Ethan Hawke’s Own Fathers
A lot of the actors contributed to the direction of the story during the making of Boyhood. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette both went through divorces, remarriages, and the arrival of new kids during the course of production, which helped to steer the ship for their characters.
Mason, Sr. was based on Hawke’s and Richard Linklater’s fathers, who were both divorced insurance agents from Texas. Olivia was based partly on Arquette’s mother, who went back to education later in life and became a psychotherapist.
Patricia Arquette Was Forbidden From Getting Plastic Surgery During The 12-Year Production
Since Patricia Arquette had been a mother from a young age, she was Richard Linklater’s first and only choice for the role of Olivia in Boyhood.
Arquette said that Linklater told her not to get any plastic surgery during the 12-year production, because her character wouldn’t get any plastic surgery.
Richard Linklater Envisioned The Movie As A Bunch Of Short Films Edited Together
Since it was tough for Richard Linklater to picture Boyhood as a complete piece when he started making it in the first of 12 years, he decided to think of it as 12 short films.
He’d make one short film a year and eventually edit them all together into a feature film.
Mason, Sr. And Samantha’s Awkward Laughing During The Sex Talk Was Genuine
In the bowling alley, when Mason, Sr. finds out that Samantha has a boyfriend and gives her a spontaneous sex talk about condoms, the two of them start laughing.
This wasn’t scripted; Lorelei Linklater and Ethan Hawke genuinely started laughing, because of how awkward the scene was. Director Richard Linklater decided to leave this moment in the movie, because he thought it was a touching moment between the two characters.
Richard Linklater Started Filming Without A Complete Script
Richard Linklater didn’t iron out the script for Boyhood before beginning the 12-year shoot. Instead, he let the story evolve and the characters grow as the actors got older. In some cases, whatever was going on in the actors’ lives was incorporated into the script.
In fact, according to Linklater, some of the scenes were written literally the night before they were shot. This was previously done when Steven Spielberg was shooting Jaws and scenes would be written over dinner with the cast every night.
Legally, The Actors Could’ve Abandoned The Project Halfway Through Shooting
Every year, the cast and crew of Boyhood got back together to shoot that year’s scenes in a week-long increment. However, there was no way for Richard Linklater to sign them up for the 12-year shoot ahead of time.
The De Havilland Law stipulates that it’s illegal to contract employees for more than seven years of work. So, there was no legal obligation for the actors in Boyhood to keep coming back to shoot their scenes every year. Linklater held them all to the honor system.
Ethan Hawke Was Prepared To Finish The Film If Richard Linklater Died
Since making Boyhood was a 12-year commitment and Richard Linklater couldn’t guarantee that he’d stay alive for the full 12 years and finish the movie, he made one of his actors, Ethan Hawke, promise to finish the movie if he died.
Thankfully, it never came to that, and Linklater managed to not only finish Boyhood, but make several other movies, too.
