Kill Your Darlings is a sexy, stylish and entertaining look at the formative years of the Beat Generation and the poets that were at the forefront of the movement (Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac). Though it tells the story of Ginsberg and Carr and their time at Columbia University, the film mostly revolves around one event that would tie all the boys together for the rest of their lives: the murder of David Kammerer.
Led by a pair of fearless performances from its leads, Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan, the film is an incredibly impressive debut from first time filmmaker John Krokidas and is already starting to pick up some serious buzz as we head into awards season.
During the Toronto International Film Festival, I had the chance to sit down with Krokidas and two of his stars, Michael C. Hall and Ben Foster, to discuss the movie. Though it doesn’t officially hit theatres until this week, on October 16th, the film has been making the rounds on the festival circuit for a while now and has earned a tremendous amount of praise, and deservedly so.
Though our time was brief, I learnt a lot from the Ben, Michael and John. The actors spoke about what attracted them to their characters and how they found a way in, while Krokidas talked about valuable lessons that he picked up on set and also shared a few interesting stories from behind the scenes.
You can check out our exclusive interview above, and be sure to catch Kill Your Darlings when it arrives in theatres on the 16th.
