is a features editor at The Verge, where he publishes award-winning stories about labor, business, and policing. Previously, he was a senior editor at GQ.
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Peter Hujar’s Day began, as many great works of art do, with a DM. Director Ira Sachs (Passages, The Delta) had just finished reading a recently unearthed interview between the late portrait photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz that took place in 1974. That dialogue — a conversation about creative anxieties, complete with the mundanities of daily life — had been published as a book in 2022.
So Sachs decided to message Rosenkrantz on Instagram about what would eventually become a film adaptation starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall as Peter and Linda. Deceptively simple and surprisingly moving, Peter Hujar’s Day recreates the interview over the course of a day, set in a single beautiful West Village apartment.
The Verge spoke with Sachs about the challenges of making such a small idea feel expansive and cinematic.
Director Ira Sachs Jeong Park
The Verge: You’ve mentioned that the genesis of the film began with you DMing Linda Rosenkrantz on Instagram. What did that look like?
Ira Sachs: I didn’t do any research, so the thing that was really surprising was maybe a month later when I realized she was 89 years old and then I was DMing her. But it was a casual back and forth. She’s super with it, and we’ve become very close in a very touching way — in a way that I think reflects something about her relationship with Peter, actually. Not just that we share this work, but also somehow — I mean, I don’t think I remind her of Peter, but I feel like she reminds me, as the movie does, of the particular nature of heterosexual women and gay men, their friendships. Like, it’s a particular type of friendship that I know really well. And I cherish her.
Is this how you usually start projects? You just, like, DM someone cold?
I start projects with an idea that I feel confident to follow. So, in a way, yes.
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