![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Ben-Whishaw-4f61117.jpg\" "\\"Ben")
<\/p>\nA name half-forgotten who deserves to be remembered, Peter Hujar is undergoing something of an arthouse revival. The New York photographer, a staple of the Manhattan creative scene in the 1970s, is the centrepiece of Ira Sachs\u2019 brand new two-hander, Peter Hujar\u2019s Day, starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall. The story, such as it is, spans across a 24-hour period in December 1974, as Hujar (Whishaw) is interviewed by author Linda Rosenkrantz (Hall) for a book \u2013 ultimately unpublished \u2013 about artists\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n
Across the film, Hujar sits in Rosenkrantz\u2019s apartment, chain-smoking and recalling events from his previous day, from the everyday to the out of the ordinary. \u201cI was really intrigued because it\u2019s not material that\u2019s obviously going to make a good film,\u201d says the British-born Whishaw, 45. “Which is what is interesting to me about it. I like that kind of investigation of something apparently very undramatic or just very mundane. But if you look at it closely, it contains riches. I like that and I could sense that there was some potential for that using this text.”<\/p>\n
Sachs, 60, calls Whishaw “a friend” and “a comrade”, and they\u2019re clearly kindred spirits. The Bedfordshire-born actor may be best known to audiences as the voice of Paddington in the recent trilogy of movies and as Q in the Daniel Craig-era James Bond films, but there are other facets to his artistic work. “We both have a really sustained and personal interest in creative life,” says Sachs. “I think in a way we give each other strength, because we\u2019re both resisting the commercial.”<\/p>\n
It may be more arty than commercial, but that doesn\u2019t stop Peter Hujar\u2019s Day being utterly mesmerising. The meandering conversation is a sublime snapshot of 1970s New York, when artists could still afford to live in the centre of the city. During his recollections, Hujar frets about his health, enjoys a Chinese meal with a friend and even plays Bach on the harpsichord. At the other end of the scale, he visits Beat poet extraordinaire Allen Ginsberg to photograph him for an assignment for the New York Times, a particularly strange but hilarious encounter.<\/p>\n
Somehow, Sachs ensures this flowing back-and-forth between Whishaw and Hall doesn\u2019t feel like a piece of theatre. “It was totally unlike a play,” says Whishaw. “Plays require so much projection in every sentence. And this was so the opposite, it was so minimal and internal and quiet. It felt very unlike a play, actually, although I understand that, yeah, it\u2019s lot of talking. But the talking is more like a piece of material. It\u2019s something that washes over the viewer.”<\/p>\n
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While Hujar passed away almost 40 years ago, Rosenkrantz is still alive, now aged 91. Sachs first approached her after reading her book, Peter Hujar\u2019s Day. Published in 2019, it contains a full transcript (previously thought lost) of her conversation with the photographer, although sadly, the tape of their chat had disappeared into the mists of time. Sachs contacted her on Instagram, telling her he\u2019d like to adapt the book for the screen.<\/p>\n
Rosenkrantz became an enthusiastic supporter of the project. “She talked to Rebecca a lot and I think that was very helpful,\u201d says Sachs. \u201cAnd she would help Rebecca with certain words, [the] pronunciation. She\u2019s a very generous, modest person.” He also is full of praise for Hall\u2019s take on Rosenkrantz. “Rebecca brings to the act of listening, both empathy and action. It\u2019s a very active performance, of someone who\u2019s listening. Maybe she made it up, but the love that she as Rebecca and as Linda feels for Peter and for Ben, I think, becomes the heart of the story.”<\/p>\n
Unlike Hall, Whishaw couldn\u2019t meet his on-screen counterpart. There\u2019s also almost no existing video footage of Hujar, although that didn\u2019t stop the actor, who dived into his research with absolute commitment. “I read a lot of about Peter,” he says. “There are lots of essays with people recalling him, stories about him.” He also took a visit to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, where he was shown photos, documents, and even Hujar\u2019s wallet and camera.<\/p>\n
Whishaw and the Sachs, who first worked together on the 2023 film Passages, did have some audio of Hujar they could listen to. One clips sees Hujar and David Wojnarowicz talk about what it means to be an artist, a conversation recorded shortly before Hujar died in 1987 of AIDS-related complications. \u201cI also have this very rare tape, which is Peter Hujar hypnotising himself in order to stop smoking!” informs Sachs. “I got it in the Morgan library. I was like, ‘What?!’ So that\u2019s pretty interesting.”<\/p>\n
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Sachs first read the transcript when he was making Passages, and Whishaw was soon on board. “I was really intrigued to explore it with Ira, because I think he has such an amazing, unusual way of working with actors and drawing things out of actors,” he says. “Lots of directors don\u2019t do that. You really have a relationship with him\u2026although he doesn\u2019t say always that much, you really feel like your performance is a dance with him. I just was excited by the combination of all the things.”<\/p>\n
The film is also steeped in culture, especially given it was shot in New York\u2019s Westbeth Artists Housing, a nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing living and work spaces for artists, “It\u2019s a building where [dancer and choreographer] Merce Cunningham had a studio for 50 years, where [photographer] Diane Arbus lived and died,” explains Sachs. “It\u2019s a building with a lot of history, and also it was a building that was given to us to make the film. I mean, not the whole building, but we were allowed access, and I think that made the film what it is, because we spent several weeks with stand-ins, body doubles, to understand how the space transformed meaning in terms of time of day and which corner you went to. And so I have a series of stills which became the movie.”<\/p>\n
What really impresses is the naturalistic, organic way that Whishaw and Hall absorb the text and make it their own. “Like with everything, you do a lot of work, and then you forget about it to some degree, and what sticks sticks and what doesn\u2019t doesn\u2019t,” says Whishaw. “Then you find some blend of who you think Peter Hujar might have been, and who I am. It had to feel very un-acted. It had to have something real in it. Otherwise it wouldn\u2019t have interest. It had to be like something real between Rebecca and I. That\u2019s what I felt.”<\/p>\n
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Ben Whishaw\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n
Even the constant smoking in the film feels unusual by today\u2019s health-conscious standards. “I used to be a smoker,” says Whishaw. “I\u2019m not anymore, but they\u2019re lovely props, aren’t they? They\u2019re really elegant, interesting things. But that\u2019s Peter\u2026he was a chainsmoker. He talks about it. So it had to be that way. And again, none of that was planned when I would light a cigarette or when I would take a drag. Each take different, each time different. Because it was just chance.” Letting fate decide was something Sachs loved. “He would put a number of elements in the scene, like some food on the table, and then it would be just what happened by chance.”<\/p>\n
Whishaw adds that Peter Hujar\u2019s Day grew out of he and Sachs\u2019s “conversations as friends” as much as anything. “We have lots of similar interests and we\u2019re interested in similar artists,” he says. “Sometimes films can be quite infantilising of actors, right? You don\u2019t feel very creative actually, whereas I feel like Ira treats you like a creative adult, and a collaborator, and you\u2019re just there, and the space is very free, and everyone is listened to and contributes.”<\/p>\n
Indeed, Passages was arguably one of Sachs\u2019s most critically and commercially successful films, but the director refused to cash in on his new-found cachet. “I got to make a incredibly free art film,” he shrugs. “People gave me money to do that film. Anything that I\u2019m going to embark upon, I have to think has allure and attractiveness and is sexy. So to me, Peter Hujar\u2019s Day is a pretty commercial film. I think it\u2019s cinematically really attractive. I think there\u2019s an erotic quality to the image and to these two bodies. I don\u2019t know, I find it pretty commercial. If you consider commercial to be\u2026authentic.”<\/p>\n
Like Sachs, Whishaw is a little conflicted by the more commercial choices he\u2019s made. “Sometimes I\u2019m regretful,” he sighs. “Silly, isn\u2019t it? I\u2019m so grateful.” But there can be no doubt he doesn\u2019t include the Paddington trilogy in this, even if parents stop him in the street and point out who he is to their bemused kids. “It is weird because\u2026the children find it strange because I\u2019m obviously not Paddington, and they can\u2019t understand that you\u2019re the voice of Paddington. What do you mean? You\u2019re either Paddington or you\u2019re not. And I\u2019m obviously not. So it\u2019s kind of confusing for children. I can see they\u2019re very unimpressed!”<\/p>\n
Peter Hujar\u2019s Day opens in UK cinemas on 2nd January 2026.<\/p>\n
Check out more of our Film<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A name half-forgotten who deserves to be remembered, Peter Hujar is undergoing something of an arthouse revival. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-347142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}