Actress Gaby Hoffmann relives 1980s New York in Netflix’s ‘Eric’

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Actress Gaby Hoffmann grew up in New York in the 1980s, in the famed Chelsea Hotel, among misfits and creatives. In the new Netflix series Eric (out May 30) she plays the mother of a young child who goes missing, also in 1980s New York. The show stars Benedict Cumberbatch among others, and explores what happens when adults, and city institutions, fail children. She joins Lilah to talk about similarities between this series and her own childhood and how good acting can help “invite people deeper into themselves”.

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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap. We’re on X @lifeandartpod and on email at [email protected]. We are grateful for reviews on Apple and Spotify. And please share this episode with your friends!

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– Eric is on Netflix May 30

– The Joan Armatrading song is called ‘Love and Affection’ (1976): https://youtu.be/sBohO1zr7jw

– Gaby’s sister Alexandra Auder wrote a book about growing up in the Chelsea Hotel. It’s called Don’t Call Me Home

– Here’s the Fresh Air episode Lilah mentioned: https://www.npr.org/2016/10/10/496958090/i-never-set-out-to-be-an-actor-says-transparent-star-gaby-hoffmann

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Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco

Audio credits this week go to A&M Records and UMG Recordings

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos. The new Netflix series, Eric, which is out on May 30th, takes place on the gritty streets of New York in the 1980s. The subways are tagged, the clubs are seedy, the corruption is rampant. And one day day a little boy named Edgar gets lost.
0:22.5	Edgar's parents fight a lot, and life isn't easy at home.
0:25.7	And after he disappears, his father, mother, and a missing person's officer spend six episodes trying to find him.
0:33.0	Edgar's father is an, let's say, unstable, creative genius played by Benedict Cumberbatch. His mother
0:39.4	is played by Gabby Hoppin. Gabby is from New York, too. She also grew up in the 80s in the
0:45.6	famed Chelsea Hotel. Her mother was amused to Andy Warhol. She starred in many of his films.
0:51.6	And Gabby was a child star in movies like Now and Then, Uncle Buck,
0:56.0	and Sleepless in Seattle. Gabby returned to acting in adulthood. She starred in Transparent,
1:01.6	an obvious child, in girls, and more. Gabby's performance in Eric is extremely memorable,
1:07.5	and she's with us today. Gabby, welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to have you.
1:11.8	Thank you so much. How are you? Well, thanks. How are you? I'm still speaking, although somewhat
1:20.1	incomprehensively after a week of talking about the show. I can imagine. And to place us,
1:25.8	we're on video. You're actually in London. I'm in New York. And you're at a press junket. Is that right?
1:32.4	Yes, that's right. In a hotel. Can you explain that for a press junket? Yeah. You sit in a hotel room in the dark with false fake lighting instead of the natural sunlight that could be coming in through the window,
1:45.2	starting at about 9 a.m. and you sit in that room until probably 1 p.m. and then you have a launch
1:51.8	break maybe for an hour, and then you go back into the room for many other hours. And every five
1:56.4	minutes a new person comes into the room or onto the screen virtually and asks you basically
2:00.7	the same
2:01.1	questions.
2:02.1	Yeah.
2:02.6	So it's certainly a lovely privileged day to be living.
2:07.2	It's weird and it's exhausting and it's cool and you get to talk a lot about a show,
	...

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