Lucas Hedges

Lucas Hedges (born December 12, 1996) is an American actor. A son of filmmaker Peter Hedges, he studied theater at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Hedges began his acting career with a supporting role in Wes Anderson's comedy-drama Moonrise Kingdom (2012). He had his breakthrough in 2016 playing a sardonic teenager in Kenneth Lonergan's drama Manchester by the Sea, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Hedges then starred as an aggressive youth in an off-Broadway production of Yen and had supporting roles in the coming-of-age film Lady Bird and the drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2017. In 2018, Hedges played the lead role of a teenager forced into a gay conversion therapy program in Boy Erased, which earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama. He also made his Broadway debut in a revival of Lonergan's drama The Waverly Gallery in the same year. In 2023, he starred as Ennis Del Mar in a West End theatre production of Brokeback Mountain. Early life Hedges was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the second of two boys born to poet and actress Susan Bruce (née Titman) and screenwriter and director Peter Hedges. His paternal grandfather, the Rev. Robert Boyden Hedges, was an Episcopal minister. His maternal grandfather was a former vice president in New York at HBO, and his maternal grandmother, Narcissa Titman, is a former theatre director and lecturer. He has an older brother, Simon, who works in private equity in New York. He grew up in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, frequently visiting his father's film sets. As a child, Hedges made his feature film debut as an extra in his father's film Dan in Real Life (2007), but his line in the film was cut in post-production. A graduate of Saint Ann's School, he studied theatre at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from 2015 to 2016. Hedges is a graduate of the Cherubs Theatre Program at Northwestern University's National High School Institute.