In 2018, Hedges played the lead role of a teenager forced into a gay conversion therapy program in Boy Erased, which earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama. He also made his Broadway debut in a revival of Lonergan's drama The Waverly Gallery in the same year. In 2023, he starred as Ennis Del Mar in a West End theatre production of Brokeback Mountain.

Early life[edit]

Hedges was born in Brooklyn, New York City,^[4] the second of two boys born to poet and actress Susan Bruce (née Titman) and screenwriter and director Peter Hedges.^[5][6][7] His paternal grandfather, the Rev. Robert Boyden Hedges, was an Episcopal minister. His maternal grandfather was a former vice president in New York at HBO,^[8] and his maternal grandmother, Narcissa Titman, is a former theatre director and lecturer.^[9][10] He has an older brother, Simon, who works in private equity in New York. He grew up in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, frequently visiting his father's film sets.^[11] As a child, Hedges made his feature film debut as an extra in his father's film Dan in Real Life (2007), but his line in the film was cut in post-production.^[12]


A graduate of Saint Ann's School, he studied theatre at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from 2015 to 2016.^{[4][13][14][15]} Hedges is a graduate of the Cherubs Theatre Program at Northwestern University's National High School Institute.