Have you ever had a transcendent drug experience of your own? The Beat Generation is also associated with drug culture, and there are some great scenes of Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Carr, popping loads of benzedrine. I’m trying to avoid saying “it was mutual” because then it’s going to sound like I was dumped, but I assure you I wasn’t dumped! You know, we lived on opposite sides of the fucking country, so it was one of those, “Do you want to not do this anymore…this is really difficult,” after eight months of seeing each other. You have that thought of, “Oh, yeah, we’re going to be together forever,” and I remember being devastated after that, but in that very teenage way where you look back on it like, “Jesus Christ! Pull yourself together, man, you’ll go through worse than that.” But that was the first time I said, “I love you.” When I thought I was first in love was when I was 14 and met my 14-year-old girlfriend. I’m also lucky enough to never fall in love with someone as emotionally cruel as Lucien Carr, so I’ve never had my heart broken in quite the same gut-wrenching way. …Totally! Points for you for being the first person to not call it a “gay love story.”ĭo you remember the first time you fell in love or thought you were in love? I was at a much younger stage of development, but I had been in school, and then I got put on that set and realized, “Oh…I’m happy here! I feel comfortable here and belong here, and my insane energy levels aren’t trying to be trounced down by teachers but are actually encouraged.”

That is very similar to me when I got Potter. Although when I listen to Laura Marling’s lyrics I think, “Jesus! How the hell did she do that at 17?” But when you’re a teenage boy saying, “Hey, do you want to read some poetry?” Not many fucking people are into it, man, so I can definitely associate with the instinct of seeing something people see as nerdy be valued, but also the sense of moving from Paterson, where you’ve been all your life, to Columbia University, and feeling that you instantly belong. It was stuff that I wrote at 17 and it’s perfectly fine for a 17-year-old. Well, yeah, a while ago! It’s stuff that I’m really…ugh. You wrote some poetry under a pen name, right? I have a sense of that because I love poetry. If you can imagine Allen in Paterson, New Jersey, wanting to write poetry and thinking, “Christ…this is terrible!” and then suddenly be in an environment where everyone is talking about poetry, and your intellect is valued, must have been incredibly exciting. But I think also, in terms of Allen, there’s a thing that goes along with his studiousness, which is a curiosity and an excitement about knowledge. I think a lot of it is just the age I am and the fact that I’ve been acting since I’ve been very young. No, I didn’t wish I could have gone to school more or anything like that. Is that an unrequited dream, going to school? You seem to be very adept at playing students, whether it’s Harry Potter, December Boys, or Kill Your Darlings. And Radcliffe displays heretofore-unforeseen levels of vulnerability and torment as the conflicted Ginsberg in what is without question the finest performance of his young career. Burroughs (Ben Foster), and Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), all find themselves under investigation. Hall), the Beat Generation’s finest young voices-to-be, Ginsberg, William S. When Carr murders his creepy ex-lover, David Kammerer (Michael C. The film, directed by John Krokidas, is set in 1944 and follows Allen Ginsberg (Radcliffe), then a freshman at Columbia University, who befriends-and eventually becomes infatuated with-the charismatic Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan). The first to hit theaters-and best, in this writer’s opinion-is Kill Your Darlings.

With Potter firmly in his rearview, the spry Brit has hit the ground running, appearing in three wildly disparate indie films that screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

Allen ginsberg kill your darlings