‘He’s Going to Rule Hollywood Someday’
Previously, Hechinger, who you might imagine as the title of a headline that asks “What on earth is going on in Germany?”, became your favorite film critic’s preferred young character actor last year. Over just a couple of months, he appeared as June Squibb’s grandson in ‘Thelma’, a psychopathic Roman emperor in ‘Gladiator II’, and an employee at the central school in ‘Nickel Boys’.
When Hollywood gazes upon his toothy grin and cherubic countenance, it often perceives either a sinister villain or a lovable dork, which is the part Hechinger plays in this month’s ‘Hell of a Summer’, a comedy-of-coming-age disguised within a summer-camp slasher film. The movie was helmed by Finn Wolfhard and his friend Billy Bryk from ‘Stranger Things’, both of whom also acted in it. This marked Hechinger’s debut as the lead actor in a film, as well as his first collaboration with directors younger than himself. “Sometimes we were referencing a Carpenter movie, and sometimes we were referencing a Vine,” he stated.