Today adolescence is fraught with risks, Hardwicke acknowledges, perhaps in a way it wasn't when she was growing up in Texas. "Suddenly drugs are a possibility, suddenly sex is a possibility, suddenly driving is a possibility," she says. "It's a whole new world you never had to experience before. That's one of the things we wanted to capture in the movie." She points to her friend. "As you can see, Nikki has all this explosive energy." This was partly expressed through the restless, handheld photography throughout the film.
"We had too much freedom," Reed admits, and she points out that she had two separated parents to play off each other. At 11 she got them to agree to let her have her tongue pierced, for example, by telling each that the other had already consented.
"She knew how to work it," says Hardwicke.
As the film suggests, there are also plenty of media exhortations to lead the consumerist, fast-track life. Reed and her friends learned to put on makeup and to dress from teen magazines, and what they couldn't afford they shoplifted.
In early January 2002 Hardwicke and Reed sat down and wrote a first draft in six days. They were guided by the fact that "it would be similar to Nikki's life," and the result, says Hardwicke, made her think, "There's something powerful here, something electric."
She polished up the script, changing the names, and two weeks later she had already interested two producers -- Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, whom she knew from "Laurel Canyon," and Michael London, whom she met at a party. Then came the hard part: raising money. Despite her industry connections, Hardwicke found that people "were terrified to make the movie" because of all the unknowns, as well as the difficult subject matter.
Ultimately she decided to bite the bullet and told everyone she would begin shooting that summer, even if she had to mortgage her house, so that Nikki could be in it and still be the right age. Levy-Hinte managed to raise a million dollars (later, Working Title tossed in half a million), and the team went after Holly Hunter to play the mother. Hunter agreed to a meeting in New York, and Hardwicke took a red-eye flight to meet her, armed with a card Nikki had made expressly for her. The actress was receptive to the project but asked for more aspects to her character. Hardwicke wrote in three extra scenes and "enriched" others, and Hunter agreed to take the part.
While they originally thought Reed would play herself, producers questioned whether she could carry the lead -- and besides, she had no marquee value. So after a wide search, Hardwicke cast Wood (TV's "Once and Again") as Tracy and persuaded the producers to let Reed take the Evie role.
Facing a low budget and labor regulations that allowed the girls to be on set no more than 9 1/2 hours a day, including lunch and makeup, Hardwicke devised a tight 24-day shooting schedule. They did manage to fit in one week of rehearsals before starting. To save money, they shot on super 16 millimeter film, and Hardwicke called on whatever resources she could; sets were furnished with things from her own house.
In the end, Hardwicke was pleased with the intense performances she extracted from her actors, teen and adult alike. "Every performance that comes from your heart -- which is what they all did -- you don't know where it's going to go," she says. "Some things work and some things don't, but they found it -- being there, that moment, in their heart and in their soul."
Today Reed gets along much better with her mother, with whom she still lives, although she attributes this as much to natural growth and maturity as to the film. Still, the writing and making of "Thirteen" made her think about her situation a lot more closely: "It helped broaden my perspective."
"My task was to capture as much of Nikki as possible but also add in texture for the parents," says Hardwicke.
Reed agrees. "Melanie has to be a character, not just Tracy's mom."
