Ben Whishaw spent 70 minutes portraying photographer Peter Hujar discussing what he ate for dinner, Allen Ginsberg’s annoying energy, and unpaid invoices from Elle magazine.
The new film Peter Hujar’s Day, directed by Ira Sachs, recreates an entire conversation between Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz from December 19, 1974—captured verbatim from a recently rediscovered transcript.
It’s cinema stripped down to pure intimacy: two friends talking on a sofa as daylight fades, exploring what happens when mundane details become art.
And it raises fascinating questions about representation, queer history, and whether there’s truly such a thing as boring.
When Mundane Becomes Masterpiece
Rosenkrantz visited Hujar’s New York apartment in 1974 with one simple request: describe yesterday in complete detail. The photographer obliged, creating a time capsule of his artistic struggles and bohemian lifestyle.
The transcript sat undiscovered until 2019, when Hujar’s papers were donated to New York’s Morgan Library. Rosenkrantz is now 91; Hujar died of AIDS in 1987 at age 53.
Sachs transformed this conversation into cinema, with Whishaw and Rebecca Hall recreating every word. Hall’s character operates a reel-to-reel tape machine that clanks and whirs throughout, adding texture to what could feel like watching paint dry—except it doesn’t.
I really love this kind of film. You can relax into it and there’s space for the viewer to drift.
Whishaw describes the experience as “a portrait of a friendship, almost a love story.” Critics have been divided—some calling it a masterpiece, others finding it challenging to watch in one sitting.
Even Lindsay Lohan weighed in, praising its “quiet beauty.”
The Memorization Marathon
Whishaw had to memorize 55 pages of painstakingly recreated mundane chat. Hall? Just three pages.
Filming took somewhere between a week and a month at Westbeth, an artists’ community on Manhattan’s western edge where Hujar actually photographed. Sachs requested Whishaw not reveal the exact timeframe—it was remarkably brief.
I really enjoy that in art. I’m reading these diaries by this brilliant Australian writer called Helen Garner and they’re all tiny observations. But it changes your perception of life, because they point you to how life is really made up of tiny moments, even when enormous events are going on.
The actor suggests viewers could approach the film like gallery video art—dropping in and out at will. It’s a radical proposition for traditional cinema.
Discovering Hujar Through Postcards and Pandemics
Whishaw first encountered Hujar’s photography on the Anohni and the Johnsons album I Am a Bird Now. He collected postcards of Hujar’s pictures of men in drag without realizing they shared a creator.
During the pandemic, connections clicked. An exhibition at London’s Maureen Paley gallery featuring performers backstage captivated him enough to purchase a work—Hujar naked in a chair with thread around his neck.
It’s quite unusual, because he usually stood when he did self-portraits, and he has a thread around his neck. I think he was starting to get into sort of witchy things for his health.
Hujar’s mastery of monochrome particularly resonates with Whishaw. The photographer discussed blacks and greys in the film itself, finding beauty in sorrow.
A Portal Into Lost Queer History
What draws Whishaw most powerfully to Hujar’s work is how it preserves a long-lost queer New York bohemia destroyed by AIDS. It functions as historical documentation of a community that might otherwise have vanished from memory.
A comprehensive show at London’s Raven Row earlier this year demonstrated Hujar’s extraordinary intimacy with subjects. His refusal to compromise artistic purity—even when it meant financial struggle—earns Whishaw’s deep respect.
He was always trying to preserve the purity of his work. In the film, he talks about how someone likes something when it looks ‘real arty’, and he hates that—something obviously palatable that will look pretty on your wall.
Working With Gay Directors Makes a Difference
Whishaw was already working on Sachs’s previous film Passages when asked to play Hujar. He agreed immediately, citing his desire to simply be in Sachs’s company again.
To work with a gay person is really nice.
When asked if working with gay directors differs from straight ones, Whishaw is clear: it absolutely feels different when projects explore gayness or queerness.
He acknowledges beautiful gay directors exist—but not many. Making films remains difficult for them, making such collaborations precious.
The Scarcity of Out Gay Actors
Few openly gay actors operate at Whishaw’s level of success. He attributes this partially to conforming to heterosexual taste or presenting sexiness in heterosexual-coded ways.
I’m always amazed by how much sex is underneath everything, actually. Or desire. There’s still a lot of homophobia and hatred. I mean, it’s better, but it’s still true.
He refuses to judge others for privacy, recognizing everyone navigates these questions differently.
The Missing Generation
At 45, Whishaw belongs to a queer generation haunted by absence. The men who should have been mentors, teachers, father figures—many died of AIDS before contributing what they had left to offer.
I feel the lack of elders. It’s like this massive gap, which is still so sad and shocking.
Hujar never photographed again after his AIDS diagnosis. Everything in his darkroom remained exactly as he left it.
Whishaw finds this particularly devastating because most artists continue creating as long as physically possible. Actors and photographers can improve with age, offering more about what it means to be human.
His own schedule reflects this drive—a TV series next, then film, possibly theatre, perhaps creating something himself. Stopping simply isn’t an option when you have more to say.