Focus Features released on Tuesday the highly anticipated trailer for “Boy Erased,” which tackles the controversial practice of “gay conversion therapy.” The film is based on Garrard Conley’s critically acclaimed 2017 memoir of the same name. Starring Lucas Hedges and Academy Award winners Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe, “Boy Erased” tells the story of Jared, a Baptist pastor’s 19-year-old son who is outed as gay to his parents. Faced with an ultimatum that forces him to choose between losing his family and attending a conversion therapy program, Jared chooses the latter. Nicole Kidman stars as "Nancy" and Russell Crowe stars as "Marshall" in Joel Edgerton's BOY ERASED. Focus Features Hedges, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in 2016’s “Manchester by the Sea,” plays Jared, with Kidman and Crowe playing his religious parents. Openly gay singer-songwriter Troye Sivan appears in the film as one of the other teens with whom Jared attends conversion therapy camp. Sivan described the experience of filming “Boy Erased” as “dark” and “uncomfortably real” during an interview earlier this year with 97.1 AMP Radio in Los Angeles. “We were given the real source materials that they used to give kids when they would arrive at the camp,” Sivan said. “I would just kind of sit there flicking through all this stuff imagining, you know, what it must have been like, and you know, it's really heavy.” Conley, who grew up in Arkansas and now lives with his husband in New York, described the real-life conversion therapy program he attended while a teen as a “full-on cult” in an interview with BBC News last month. Conversion therapy, also known as "reparative therapy" or "ex-gay therapy," aims to change one’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Despite widespread opposition from health associations, like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, approximately 700,000 LGBTQ Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 have been subjected to this practice at some point in their lives, according to a 2018 report from UCLA’s Williams Institute. The report also estimated tens of thousands of LGBTQ youth currently between the ages of 13 and 17 will undergo “gay conversion therapy" from a licensed health care professional, religious adviser or spiritual leader before they turn 18. In the U.S., the legality of conversion therapy for minors is determined by individual states. Currently, 13 states and the District of Columbia protect LGBTQ youth under age 18 from conversion therapy by preventing licensed mental health service professionals from conducting it (while New York is not considered one of the 13 states, it does bar health insurers from covering the treatment for minors). Nearly 20 other states are considering similar laws. This map indicates states that protect LGBTQ youth from conversion therapy through licensing restrictions which prevent licensed mental health service professionals from conducting conversion therapy on youth under age 18. Human Rights Campaign Earlier the month, the British government said it would ban the "abhorrent practice" as part of a 4.5-million-pound ($5.9 million) "LGBT Action Plan" to improve the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the U.K. Sam Brinton, a survivor of conversion therapy and the head of advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that supports LGBTQ youth in crisis, said public awareness about the “discredited” practice of conversion therapy is crucial. "The Trevor Project estimates that nearly 80,000 LGBTQ youth will be subjected to forms of conversion therapy in the next few years," Brinton told NBC News. "As The Trevor Project works with states and cities to pass legislation protecting LGBTQ youth from conversion therapy, we also know that partnering with film and TV studios for fair and accurate media representation will play an important role in educating the family and friends of LGBTQ young people about the dangers and ineffectiveness of conversion therapy in all of its forms." Dusty Ray Bottoms, a popular “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant who recently shared her own harrowing experience with conversion therapy, said she hopes the film raises awareness and changes hearts and minds. “It is both moving and encouraging to see this story — that is a hard reality for so many — be told so genuinely and honestly,” she told NBC News after watching the film’s trailer. “In this less-than-three-minute trailer, I have already seen so much of my own journey mirrored to me. I hope that this film will join the likes of ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Love, Simon’ in not only telling the struggles of the LGBTQ community, but also offering a space of reflection for those who have stood against us.” “Boy Erased” is scheduled to be released on November 2. FOLLOW NBC OUTON TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM<doc-sep>Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased trailer debuts Focus Features has released the official trailer for the coming-of-age and coming-out drama, Boy Erased. The movie comes from writer/director Joel Edgerton (The Gift) and is based on Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family by Garrard Conley. Check out the trailer for the film in the player below, starring Academy Award nominee Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) and Academy Award winners Russell Crowe (Gladiator) and Nicole Kidman (The Hours). Boy Erased tells the story of Jared (Hedges), the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who is outed to his parents (Kidman and Crowe) at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program — or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith. Boy Erased is the true story of one young man’s struggle to find himself while being forced to question every aspect of his identity. The movie also stars Joel Edgerton¸ Emmy and Tony Award winner Cherry Jones, Grammy Award winner Michael “Flea” Balzary from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Xavier Dolan, Joe Alwyn, singer/songwriter and YouTube personality Troye Sivan, Emily Hinkler, Jesse LaTourette, David Joseph Craig, Théodore Pellerin, Madelyn Cline, and Britton Sear. Boy Erased is being produced by Edgerton and Anonymous Content’s Kerry Kohansky-Roberts and Steve Golin, an Academy Award-winning producer of Best Picture Oscar winner Spotlight. Executive producing the film are Rebecca Yeldham, Ann Ruark, and Anonymous Content’s Kim Hodgert and Tony Lipp. Josh McLaughlin, Focus president of production, will supervise the project for the company. Conley’s memoir was first published last year by Penguin Random House and was issued earlier this year in paperback. Edgerton has written the screenplay adaptation; Boy Erased will be his second feature as director following the sleeper hit The Gift (also produced by Yeldham), which earned him a Directors Guild of America Award nomination. He was recently a Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award nominee for his performance in Focus’ Loving. Boy Erased is set to arrive in theaters on November 2.<doc-sep>
The trailer for the Oscar-tipped drama Boy Erased has given a first look at the fact-based tale of gay conversion therapy. It’s actor-director Joel Edgerton’s follow-up to his film-making debut, domestic thriller The Gift, and stars Lucas Hedges as the son of a Baptist pastor who is sent away to a therapy program aimed at “curing” him of his homosexuality. It’s based on a memoir of the same name by Garrard Conley, published in 2016 to critical acclaim. Hedges received an Oscar nomination for his breakout performance in Manchester by the Sea and has since appeared in Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. His onscreen parents in the film are played by Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman. “The way in which she and her husband feel about putting [Jared] into conversion therapy, I wanted that to come from a place of a mother thinking it’s the right thing to do,” Kidman said to Entertainment Weekly. “Nothing that she did was vindictive, which is probably why they have such a strong relationship now.” Edgerton, most recently seen opposite Jennifer Lawrence in Red Sparrow, also appears in front of the camera as the head of the program. “I’m obsessed with cults and prisons, and I felt like I was going to get this glimpse into a world I’d heard about,” Edgerton said of the film earlier this year. “You leave Garrard’s story feeling like the true conversion that is at the heart of the movie is the conversion of his ideas.” It’s the second film this year to tackle the issue of gay conversion therapy, following on from Appropriate Behaviour director Desiree Akhavan’s comedy drama The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which won the Grand Jury prize at January’s Sundance film festival. Boy Erased is released in US cinemas on 2 November and is expected to premiere at the fall festival circuit, with an Oscar campaign likely to follow.