“I was kind of ruthless, I was in my mid-twenties, I didn’t know what I was really doing with my life at that point, so I was like ‘I think I’ll hide for another couple of years,’” said Lehane. After a few years of indecision and distress about the future, he followed his roommate to FIU and enrolled in its creative writing graduate program, and received his masters degree in 2001. He earned his undergraduate degree from Eckerd College in St. “I don’t know if I’m a total cheerleader for it, I just know that I found it a very interesting place to grow up.”ĭespite his attachment to New England, some of Lehane’s formative years unfolded in Florida. “It’s just a fun city, it’s very interesting, very beautiful. While he currently lives in California, Lehane often finds inspiration in Boston, his hometown, when creating new characters and plots for his stories. As a film buff I’ve been following him as a director since Play Misty for Me, his first movie, and I think he’s a fascinating director and I think he’s right for this material.” I was like: ‘Clint Eastwood?’ I mean, come on. “Then we got a phone call and it was Clint Eastwood.

“I knew that whoever would come for it would at least be serious,” said Lehane in an interview for January Magazine in 2001. Lehane made a cameo appearance in the film he is seen briefly waving from a car at the end of the film. It won two, for Best Actor (Sean Penn) and Best Supporting Actor (Tim Robbins). The adaptation of Mystic River, his most sold book, received six Academy Award nominations in 2004. “Not just because he’s such a big name, but because I was a big admirer of all of his films and the way he ran his company.” “Certainly, when Clint Eastwood came along, that was a big deal,” said Lehane. “So when I went to my parents and said ‘I wanna major in creative writing,’ they kind of said: ‘Oh well, you kinda suck at everything else.’”Īs of 2023, Lehane has published 15 novels and a short story, five of which have been adapted to the big screen-projects directed by Eastwood, Affleck, and Scorsese. “Where I grew up, it wasn’t really considered a viable career option, so I took a bunch of different safety majors and realized that I sucked at everything else,” said Lehane, who earned his masters degree at Florida International University. What he didn’t always know was that one day, he’d not only make a living out of what was once just a hobby but he would transport some of his stories to the big screen, working with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck. If there’s something Dennis Lehane always knew he was good at, it was writing. Lehane’s most famous novel, Mystic River, was adapted into a film that won two Academy Awards in 2004 (Sofia Colignon/SFMN)

Mystic river lehane