Lucas Hedges

The American independent-film scene faces no shortage of questions. Coming off a year of drastically reduced production, the ongoing fallout of the 2023 writers’ strike and the aftermath of the disastrous California wildfires to an business climate held in limbo by various potential mergers and acquisitions, there are doubts about the financial viability of outside-the-box, sometimes demanding stories that are not comfortably minted from Hollywood studio IP farms.

Having received an Oscar nomination for Manchester by the Sea and scored rave reviews for dramatic turns in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Lady Bird, Mid90’s and Ben Is Back, the 22-year-old actor has established himself as the go-to guy playing teen angst, showcasing a depth of emotion and insight years beyond his age. Now the Brooklyn native has added his first Golden Globe nomination to the list of his accomplishments: Best Actor in a Drama for his stirring role as Jared Eamons in Boy Erased, a powerful story on the son of a Baptist minister who is forced to participate in a church-supported gay conversion therapy program.