In this interview conducted for the Final Draft Screenwriting blog, I chat to writer/director Peter Hedges about the new addiction drama starring his son Lucas, and someone called Julia Roberts. 

When novelist, playwright and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Peter Hedges sat down to write the screenplay for the new addiction drama Ben Is Back, he drew from a personal place.

“I grew up in a family ravaged by alcoholism,” Hedges said.

“My mother walked out of the house drunk when I was seven. I knew her first as a sober person when I was 15. I lost a close friend who had been doing well, who relapsed and overdosed.”