The youngest Oscar nominee this year, Lucas Hedges, hasn’t been making the usual rounds on the awards circuit to promote his supporting role in Manchester by the Sea, and for good reason — he’s currently starring in the buzzy, ambitious production of the Off Broadway play Yen. So we had to ask when we ran into the 20-year-old actor on Yen’s opening night — does his limited ability to celebrate his nomination with Hollywood’s elite make him feel like he’s missing out? He laughed. “No FOMO!”
“It’s a bit challenging, but it’s also my dream, to be doing this play and be nominated for all these awards,” he explained. “And I get to work for a theater that’s accommodating to me. I feel like I’m fitting in everything, not like I’m missing out on anything.”
Indeed, Hedges was able to fly out for the SAG Awards last weekend, and be back in time for opening night on Tuesday. (An understudy filled in for him). And he flew out again for the Oscar nominees lunch on Monday. Sure, he missed celebrating with his cast mates at the Golden Globes because the play was in rehearsals, but he wasn’t nominated, so no big loss there. Any time he might feel a tinge of regret, he thinks about Andrew Garfield, who faces the same predicament, given that he’s starring in a London revival of Angels in America this spring. “I feel like I’m in good company, with respect to missing out on some stuff,” Hedges said. “If I’m missing out, he’s missing out, too.”
Yen announced this week that it was extending its limited run to March 4. The new plan is to go dark Oscars weekend instead of using the understudy, as an acknowledgment that theatergoers might be bummed out if they were coming to see Hedges, who will be making pit stops at both the Independent Spirit Awards and the Oscars. “This is my life!” he laughed. “I’m not getting a lot of sleep, but I am getting a lot of frequent-flyer miles.”
