ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to author Jeff Hobbs, who wrote the book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, which inspired the film Rob Peace by Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor. Hobbs discussed visiting the set and seeing the true story come to screen. The film is now playing exclusively in theaters.
“Directed, adapted by, and starring Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), Rob Peace follows the true story of a brilliant young man (Jay Will) torn between his father’s shadowed past and his own promising future. Raised by his devoted mother (Academy Award nominee Mary J. Blige, Mudbound), Rob risks everything he has worked for to free his imprisoned father (Ejiofor). Also starring Camila Cabello and based on the New York Times bestseller by Jeff Hobbs,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Your book is the impetus for all this, but you’re also a character in the movie since the real Rob Peace was your college roommate. Benjamin Papac plays you in the film. How surreal was it seeing a version of you in the movie?
Jeff Hobbs: Yeah, it was interesting to see that for the first time. I thought he did a really nice job.
Did you get to go on set any?
I did visit the set with Rob’s mother a couple of times, two times, actually. That was very special, but I also found that people working on movie sets are incredibly busy and working incredibly hard. Probably Chiwetel more than anybody, and I found that when you’re on a movie set, and you’re not working that hard, and you’re not busy, I felt very much in the way. So, I didn’t try to hang around too long.
I spoke with Jay Will, who portrays Rob Peace in the film, and he told me this wonderful story about how he got the blessing of Rob’s mother to play her son. What stood out about seeing his performance? I felt he did such a wonderful job of really putting heart into it and doing the story justice.
Yeah, I’m so glad you brought that performance up. I’m so glad you used the word heart because I think that truly is the center of the performance of the movie and of the book I wrote and Rob Peace himself. I think everybody who knew Rob just talks about his heart. I think when Jay Will was first cast, maybe even before he was officially cast, I know that the first thing he did was visit the Peace home in New Jersey and spend time with his mother. I think that meant a lot to everybody.
I think what was really powerful for me watching him on screen was the way he inhabited the complexity and some of the burdens that Rob carried, but he really understood and got the joy of Rob and the exuberance and the way that Rob brought people together from all different spaces. I don’t know how he did that, but he did it.
I think with both your book and this film, one thing they really encapsulate well is that Rob comes across as a fully formed person, and you see all the complexity within him. I know when your book was released, I saw some reactions where they boiled it down to a double life, which is a catchy way to simplify it, but that’s not really how it was. In your book, you really see the full picture and that he still was the same person the entire time. I would love to get your thoughts on that.
I’m so glad for everything you just said. I think you encapsulated a lot of the point of this story with everything you just said, and it’s the message I try to bring when I have the privilege of visiting maybe a college campus or a high school classroom just to talk about to young people about writing and Rob Peace in particular. It is this impulse we have to put people and put stories in boxes, right? Exactly as you said, Rob, throughout his whole life, he was said to be two people. His mother’s son and his father’s son, the science nerd and the marijuana dealer. But I lived with him in a very small dorm room for four years, and he had a wide, wide orbit of people who loved him, and everybody knew he was one person who kind of moved fluidly between spaces, sometimes not fluidly. I think the acknowledgement that you yourself just made so elegantly, I hope, is the takeaway for a lot of people. I hope that takeaway just helps people pay more attention to each other, presume a little less, listen a little more, and just treat each other a little better.
Chiwetel really does his story justice by his direction and his acting as well. Could you just speak to getting him on the project and to have your work adapted by an award-winning actor and director? I feel that has to be a privilege.
It really was, and I’m so grateful to Chiwetel. I have to admit, I felt like he connected with the book, and he personally took it on, the writing and the directing and, and all the behind the scenes things that go into telling the story. I really was very passive throughout. Chiwetel almost single-handedly brought this to the screen with a lot of heart. I’m so grateful, I’ll just say that.
Right after I met Chiwetel for the first time, and he spoke very beautifully about what the story meant to him. I got the opportunity to see The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which had just been released. I exited that theater almost convulsively sobbing, trying to make my way through a lobby. I couldn’t remember where my car was parked. So, a man who’s capable of generating that much emotion, I feel like, as you said, was the perfect person to bring Rob to the screen.
Thanks to Jeff Hobbs for talking about Rob Peace.
