When Boy Erased director and star Joel Edgerton premiered his film at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in 2018, he was particularly struck by one audience member's response. "I met a young man, he was 22 or 21 years old, who was a volunteer at Telluride," says Edgerton. "Among other things, he said, 'I wish this film existed when I was 15 years old'."
Boy Erased is based on the memoir of the same name by Garrard Conley, recounting his late teens, during which his conservative Baptist parents discovered his homosexuality and sent him to a conversion therapy centre called Love in Action. In his memoir, Conley remembers the psychologically damaging education from the centre and how he fought to reconcile his identity.
In the film, Garrard becomes Jared, played by Lucas Hedges, while Edgerton plays Victor Sykes, a fictionalised version of Love in Action's real-life former leader John Smid. Edgerton says responses such as the young man at Telluride's reminded him of the importance of using his platform to create change.
"Straight people – there are so many stories out there they can identify with," he says. "It really struck me when I met that young man, because it just created this whole world that I could imagine when he was growing up. I suddenly felt how much responsibility we could have pushing this film forward, and how important it is we get it out there and share it with as many people as possible."
