Catherine Hardwicke says she was paid $3 to direct ‘Thirteen’ because no studio wanted to make R-rated movie about teen girls

Lengthy earlier than Euphoria, there was 13.

Catherine Hardwicke’s R-rated slice-of-life drama about an honors scholar (Evan Rachel Wooden) whose relationship along with her mom (Holly Hunter) is put to the take a look at when a brand new pal (Nikki Reed) introduces her to intercourse, medicine and petty crime surprised audiences when it debuted on the Sundance Movie Pageant in early 2003 and subsequently launched in theaters 20 years in the past Sunday.

“I like elevating issues,” Hardwicke (Twilight, Mafia Mamma) tells us in a current interview. “I needed you to really feel how the hormones are raging and what it feels prefer to be a child when all the things issues.”

Hardwicke was a prolific manufacturing designer working with the likes of Cameron Crowe, Richard Linklater and David O. Russell within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s when she teamed with Reed — then 14, and the daughter of an ex-boyfriend — to jot down the script for 13 in solely six days. “We actually tried to [show] what it felt prefer to be a teen, and simply going by way of all of the loopy pressures from the skin world,” Hardwicke says.

However whereas Euphoria, the Emmy-winning sensation starring Zendaya that gives an typically heavy and jarring depiction of up to date feminine teendom, was produced with the backing of the hit-making community HBO, Hollywood was way more cautious of comparable content material when Hardwicke and Reed shopped their script round city twenty years in the past.

“I imply, each studio and each financier mentioned, ‘No, we won’t make it. How may we make a film that’s gonna be R-rated with an unknown 13-year-old lady within the lead?’ Everyone mentioned no,” Hardwicke says.

The movie was finally produced with a finances of about $2 million, which Hardwicke raised by way of impartial fairness financing. It was shot in Los Angeles over 24 days.

“We made it by hook or criminal, you already know? And for no cash. I received paid three bucks the entire time. However once we lastly made it, folks have been like, ‘Oh, it is highly effective. It is shifting. It is related in a strategy to what individuals are going by way of.’”

After the movie premiered to raves and a directing award for Hardwicke on the Sundance Movie Pageant, Fox Searchlight acquired the movie and finally set it for theatrical launch on Aug. 20, 2003. It finally earned over $10 million, scored bravura opinions (“An emotionally wrenching, to not point out terrifying, movie in regards to the perils of being a teen,” reads the crucial consensus of Rotten Tomatoes’s 81 p.c approval score) and heaps of honors, together with Oscar and BAFTA nominations for Hunter, SAG nominations for Wooden and Hunter and an Unbiased Spirit Award win for Reed.

“That’s my little child,” Hardwicke says now of the movie. “You already know, I noticed what Nikki Reed was going by way of at 13… Holly Hunter, Evan Rachel Wooden, their performances are nonetheless so sturdy if you happen to watch it now as a result of they put their hearts into it. They felt it. They lived it on the day. So I like that movie.”

And it’s nonetheless resonating with teenagers in the present day, the filmmaker says.

“Even now on TikTok, there’s like 1.6 billion interactions with 13. Persons are seeing clips and so they’re writing within the feedback, ‘That occurred to me final week with my mother.’ So as a result of it was fairly trustworthy and had actual feelings, it is nonetheless related to lots of people.”

Hardwicke and Reed reunited 5 years in the past when the director forged the actress as vampire Rosalie Hale in The Twilight Saga. However the pair have lengthy mentioned persevering with The 13 Saga.

“Now we have talked about [it], I discuss to Nikki loads,” Hardwicke says. “We actually wanna do a TV collection the place we see different 13-year-old women: 13 Afghanistan, 13 Detroit. You already know, let’s have a look at how different 13-year-old women are navigating their transition into maturity.”

13 is offered to stream on Apple TV.