A 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’ brand new two-hander, Peter Hujar’s 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period in December 1974, as Hujar (Whishaw) is interviewed by author Linda Rosenkrantz (Hall) for a book – ultimately unpublished – about artists’ lives.
Across the film, Hujar sits in Rosenkrantz’s apartment, chain-smoking and recalling events from his previous day, from the everyday to the out of the ordinary. “I was really intrigued because it’s not material that’s obviously going to make a good film,” 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."
Sachs, 60, calls Whishaw "a friend" and "a comrade", and they’re 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’re both resisting the commercial."
It may be more arty than commercial, but that doesn’t stop Peter Hujar’s 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.
Somehow, Sachs ensures this flowing back-and-forth between Whishaw and Hall doesn’t 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’s lot of talking. But the talking is more like a piece of material. It’s something that washes over the viewer."
View oEmbed on the source websiteWhile Hujar passed away almost 40 years ago, Rosenkrantz is still alive, now aged 91. Sachs first approached her after reading her book, Peter Hujar’s 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’d like to adapt the book for the screen.
Rosenkrantz became an enthusiastic supporter of the project. "She talked to Rebecca a lot and I think that was very helpful,” says Sachs. “And she would help Rebecca with certain words, [the] pronunciation. She’s a very generous, modest person." He also is full of praise for Hall’s take on Rosenkrantz. "Rebecca brings to the act of listening, both empathy and action. It’s a very active performance, of someone who’s 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."
Unlike Hall, Whishaw couldn’t meet his on-screen counterpart. There’s also almost no existing video footage of Hujar, although that didn’t 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’s wallet and camera.
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. “I 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’s pretty interesting."
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’t do that. You really have a relationship with him…although he doesn’t 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."
The film is also steeped in culture, especially given it was shot in New York’s Westbeth Artists Housing, a nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing living and work spaces for artists, "It’s a building where [dancer and choreographer] Merce Cunningham had a studio for 50 years, where [photographer] Diane Arbus lived and died," explains Sachs. "It’s 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."
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’t doesn’t," 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’t have interest. It had to be like something real between Rebecca and I. That’s what I felt."
Even the constant smoking in the film feels unusual by today’s health-conscious standards. "I used to be a smoker," says Whishaw. "I’m not anymore, but they’re lovely props, aren't they? They’re really elegant, interesting things. But that’s Peter…he 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."
Whishaw adds that Peter Hujar’s Day grew out of he and Sachs’s "conversations as friends" as much as anything. "We have lots of similar interests and we’re interested in similar artists," he says. "Sometimes films can be quite infantilising of actors, right? You don’t feel very creative actually, whereas I feel like Ira treats you like a creative adult, and a collaborator, and you’re just there, and the space is very free, and everyone is listened to and contributes."
Indeed, Passages was arguably one of Sachs’s 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’m going to embark upon, I have to think has allure and attractiveness and is sexy. So to me, Peter Hujar’s Day is a pretty commercial film. I think it’s cinematically really attractive. I think there’s an erotic quality to the image and to these two bodies. I don’t know, I find it pretty commercial. If you consider commercial to be…authentic."
Like Sachs, Whishaw is a little conflicted by the more commercial choices he’s made. "Sometimes I’m regretful," he sighs. "Silly, isn’t it? I’m so grateful." But there can be no doubt he doesn’t 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…the children find it strange because I’m obviously not Paddington, and they can’t understand that you’re the voice of Paddington. What do you mean? You’re either Paddington or you’re not. And I’m obviously not. So it’s kind of confusing for children. I can see they’re very unimpressed!"
Peter Hujar’s Day opens in UK cinemas on 2nd January 2026.
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