Salles adds that the most difficult role to cast was that of Dean Moriarty, the charming, yet destructive friend of narrator Sal Paradise. Moriarty was, in real life, Neal Cassady, the author’s friend.

Salles says that Hedlund had gone on a road trip of his own, driving from Minnesota five years ago to audition for the part.

“When he finished reading the scenes, there was such electricity in the air that we were all completely taken by it,” he tells THR. “And that electricity never disappeared. We’re still in love with Garrett.”

Hedlund, who was part of the same four-week “beatnik bootcamp” as Stewart, describes Cassady as an intellectual whose thirst for exploration was an admirable quality.

“To me, I feel that he’s one of my heroes in the way that he approached life in terms of the yearning for adventure,” he says. “I grew up with storytellers all my life, and the knowledge that he could shed and the stories that he told, that comes from a wonderful life experience and that’s what he had.”

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