“Beautiful Boy,” the Golden Globe-nominated true story of a family struggling with a son’s heroine addiction, is a heartbreaking portrayal of a family contending with crisis — but a family nonetheless.
While filming “Beautiful Boy,” the cast and filmmakers said in an exclusive featurette given to TheWrap that they created their own dedicated family on set to support each other, much like the real-life Sheff family on which the film is based.
“There was this incredible moment when the Sheffs visited us on set and saw the family we had recreated and there was this deep sense of love and a bond between everybody — Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan,” producer Jeremy Kleiner said in the exclusive clip.
Directed and co-written by Felix van Groeningen, “Beautiful Boy” is based on the best-selling pair of memoirs “Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy” and “Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction” from father and son, David and Nic Sheff. The film chronicles Nic’s survival, relapse and recovery, as his family copes with his addiction over many years.
In the featurette, the cast and filmmakers discuss the performances of the actresses portraying the pivotal women in Nic’s life – Tierney, who plays Nic’s stepmother, and Ryan, who plays his biological mother.
“Maura’s performance is extremely subtle and really beautiful,” Kleiner said. “You are aware there is a deep bond between Maura and Nic.”
Carell said of Tierney and Ryan, “Just love them. Terrific actors.”
Chalamet, who gushed about getting the opportunity to work with Ryan, who also worked for years with Carell on “The Office,” said they all became a team on set.
“I get a definite sense of commitment from everybody to the story and to the real-life people,” Carell said in the clip.
“Beautiful Boy” is now streaming on Prime Video.