Director Richard Linklater, This Is Your Year

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It takes more than a village to make an award-worthy performance--it takes a million tiny moments that together create a film or TV show more magical than its parts. This week, ETonline talks with Golden Globe nominees about all the big and small ways stars have to align for a great idea to make it to the screen.

Director Richard Linklater--up until now, probably most famous for Dazed & Confused and Before Sunrise films--filmed Boyhood with the same cast over the course of 12 years. But for him, it was all about the journey, not the destination. That said, Linklater's final destination is likely to be the Oscars for his groundbreaking, Herculean directorial effort, which also earned him Golden Globe nominations for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Motion Picture, Drama.

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ETonline: You spent more than a thousand days filming this movie for over a decade. What was the most difficult day on set for you?

Richard Linklater: Just getting started. The beginning. Because the end felt so far away.

It literally was!

Yeah. It was abstract. But as we went along, it got more and more tangible.

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Can you summarize how this project went from your mind to the finished product?

It just came to me. It was one of those voila, a-ha moments where I could see the finished film. And everyone just sort of aged, and I could tell the whole story of growing up. But it would take that kind of time-lapse storytelling method that I had never seen before. I was like solving the storytelling problem at a conceptual level.

Did the final cut look anything like the picture you originally had in your mind?

The same tone. The same kind of feeling.

What was the best part of this experience for you?

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Just the process itself. I am very process-oriented. The feeling on the set, like at the end, the last shot, was amazing. It was like: "Oh, my God." And I had a crew that had worked all those years. It was the way people invested over years. People were like: "Well, what if someone dropped out?" No, the more people worked, the more they cared, the more they felt. Think about it like in life: You put in a few years in something, like a relationship, you kind of want to see it through. And this was like that for so many people. So we're all very thrilled. When you feel like you've connected with an audience, it's kind of special for everybody who worked on it.

So your cast and crew bonded as an extended family, right?

Oh yeah. Every film feels that way. This was that times twelve.

Still, you must feel like actor Ellar Coltrane's surrogate father at this point.

Cool uncle, I hope. We never fell into father-son [roles] because he's got a great dad. And I've got my own kids. But it was special. And it always will be.

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So does award show season feel like one big family reunion?

Sometimes. And it's good to get to know people, too. A lot of directors, we don't know each other-unless you meet them at a film festival. So it's fun to see people you admire and say, "Good job." It's all fun. It's not work, you know.

ETonline previously caught up with Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything), and Reese Witherspoon (Wild) about their nominated turns on screen.

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