By — Jeffrey Brown Jeffrey Brown Leave a comment 0comments Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/beautiful-boy-resonates-for-a-country-gripped-by-addiction Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio A harrowing, timely film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this fall opens around the country today. "Beautiful Boy" chronicles meth addiction and recovery through the eyes of a father and his afflicted son. Jeffrey Brown speaks with stars Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet about the story’s resonance, their career trajectories and a “raw new energy" in film today. Read the Full Transcript Judy Woodruff: A film that premiered at the Toronto International Film festival earlier this fall is now set to open nationwide.And, as Jeffrey Brown reports, it takes on a harrowing subject affecting families in every corner of the United States. Timothee Chalamet: When I tried it, I felt better than I ever had, so I just kept on doing it. Jeffrey Brown: In the film "Beautiful Boy," a young man enters the hell of drug addiction. A father struggles to understand what's happened to his little boy. And the two go through cycles of recovery and relapse, a seemingly never-ending world of heartbreak.It's a tough subject, also one very much in the psyche of a nation in the throes of an opioid addiction crisis. Steve Carell: It's the reason I chose the movie. Jeffrey Brown: It is? Steve Carell: Yes. I felt that it was about the most timely thing you could choose to make a film about. Jeffrey Brown: Steve Carell plays the father David Sheff, a Northern California freelance journalist whose life comes crashing down. Steve Carell: My son has gone missing. And I wanted to check to see if he had maybe been brought in or — or if there had been an accident.I have a 14- and a 17-year-old. And every night, I go home, and I would look at them and I would hug them. And it's — you know, it sounds like a cliche, but you can't help but have stuff like this get inside as you're doing it. Jeffrey Brown: Timothee Chalamet plays young Nic Sheff, living a secret life that spins out of control, in his case from addiction to methamphetamines. Timothee Chalamet: Dad, I'm really sorry about everything.Today, we live in a really confusing world. And this is an out in many ways. This is a crisis in our country right now. It's a crisis with people of all ages and genders and race. Steve Carell: This is a story about a family and about a deep love and connection between this father and son specifically.And that's how I approached it. I didn't — I didn't approach it as an addiction drama or a recovery trauma. I thought of it as a compelling story. Timothee Chalamet: I have worked on projects that are fiction, and it feels like there's a responsibility to the author. And here, I thought, like, there was an added layer of intensity in that regard, because these are real people who lived these lives and had this experience. Jeffrey Brown: The film is based on a true account, two accounts, in fact.The real-life David and Nic Sheff each published a memoir of his experience, offering director Felix Van Groeningen a kind of duet of voices, sometimes in synch, other times sailing past one another. Felix Van Groeningen: The things they talked about where the same, but written in a different way and seen from a different point of view.So, I'm balancing those two points of view and understanding the two of them, even as it leads to almost a tragic breakup, I thought was really powerful. Jeffrey Brown: Steve Carell is known as a brilliant and versatile comedian, perhaps still most of all for his role in the TV series "The Office." Steve Carell: That's what she said.(LAUGHTER) Jeffrey Brown: But he's now taken on a number of dramatic roles, including the 2014 "Foxcatcher." Steve Carell: What do you hope to achieve, Mark? Channing Tatum: I want to be the best in the world. Steve Carell: Good. Jeffrey Brown: Timothee Chalamet, already a veteran actor at just 22, burst into larger public awareness with last year's "Call Me By Your Name." Timothee Chalamet: Just watch. This is how he will say goodbye to us when the time comes. Later. Steve Carell: I have been doing some research. Timothee Chalamet: Been doing some (expletive) research. You got to be kidding me, dad. Steve Carell: You think that you have this under control. And I understand how scared you are. Jeffrey Brown: In "Beautiful Boy," the two are comfortably together and horribly apart, sometimes, as in this scene, at the same time. Timothee Chalamet: Like your special creation or something, and you don't like who I am now. Steve Carell: Both keep trying in their own way to reach the other, but it's almost like one of them is underwater, and one of them's on a boat, and they're trying to talk to each other. Timothee Chalamet: By nature of playing the symptoms of meth addiction, there's a spontaneity to that. And Steve is a major improv legend. And I bring that up because I could see immediately. Jeffrey Brown: Does your improv experience come into play in a scene like that? Steve Carell: Not so much in the context of improvising dialogue, but it was more the physicality of improv, the trying to suss out where the other — the other character is within the scene.I don't know. It's — God, I have such a hard time talking about acting. Jeffrey Brown: You do? Steve Carell: I do. I really do. Jeffrey Brown: Because? Steve Carell: I always sound so incredibly pretentious talking about… Jeffrey Brown: And you don't like it? Steve Carell: You talk about craft.Sometimes, it works, and, sometimes, it doesn't. And I think so much of it is just who your partner is, who you're working with. Jeffrey Brown: No one's surprised to see you doing these serious films anymore, I don't think. Are you — are you? Is this what you wanted to do? Steve Carell: To be pretentious, yes. That was my ultimate goal.(LAUGHTER) Jeffrey Brown: To have people like me asking, like, about this serious film? Steve Carell: Exactly. Yes. I have finally made it to PBS. That's — that was it. Jeffrey Brown: Congratulations. Steve Carell: Thank you.There's no sort of specific career trajectory that I was looking for. Jeffrey Brown: Do you have one? I mean, because you're just starting out. People are getting to know you, and know you big time now, suddenly, Timothee Chalamet: No, I — there's no road map. I feel that I just want to work on a good things and keep working with good people and people I can learn from.And it's a new world in many ways. I think it's a beautiful thing for creatives, period. There is a great, raw, new energy. Jeffrey Brown: "Beautiful Boy" opens nationwide this week.For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown at the Toronto International Film Festival. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Oct 19, 2018 By — Jeffrey Brown Jeffrey Brown Jeffrey Brown is the chief correspondent for arts, culture and society at PBS NewsHour.