Ethan Hawke
By Whit Stillman
In Tom DeCillo’s cult film Living in Oblivion, the movie-star character Chad Palomino blurts out that he only took the role because he heard the nerd director was “tight with Tarantino.” Who’s tight with whom has become the alpha and omega for getting independent films made—and Ethan Hawke has had especially good luck, or judgment, in this area. Since making Dead Poets Society at age 18, he has been friends with Robert Sean Leonard, who appeared in Hawke’s directorial debut, the micro-budget Chelsea Walls. But his tightest knuckle tap has been with director Richard Linklater. It culminated in six films together (most notably Before Sunrise and 2004’s Before Sunset), as well as Hawke’s own directorial ambitions.
So when the opportunity came up to interview the Oscar-nominated actor (for 2001’s Training Day) about his new film, The Hottest State, which he directed and stars in, I jumped at it. Maybe this was my chance to get tight with the actor-director, too. First off was a trip to Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater for one of the last performances of his play, Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia.
The Coast of Utopia is either a towering achievement of the theater—it was nominated for ten Tony awards and won seven—or a horrible, sub-intellectual mishmash. In either case, Hawke’s performance as the aristocrat-turned-anarchist Mikhail Bakunin is stunning—the boy from Dead Poets Society and White Fang, an impressive, dominating persona, all grown up. (He was nominated for a Tony, but lost to his scene partner Billy Crudup.) Indicative of this maturity is Hawke’s ambition to direct theater as well as film: For one, he’s helming Jonathan Marc Sherman’s play, The Things We Want, off–Broadway next season.
When I meet Hawke outside his tiny dressing room, he does seem like a good guy, far removed from the annoying Gen-Xer of Reality Bites. Perhaps his divorce in 2004 from Uma Thurman—with whom he has a 5-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter—has added a gravitas to the thoughtfulness he has always shown.
The full interview between Ethan Hawke and Whit Stillman, after the jump!
WHIT STILLMAN: When did you and Richard Linklater first meet?
ETHAN HAWKE: We first met right before Dazed and Confused came out. I have this little theatre company here in New York [The Malaparte Theatre Co.] and one of my friends who was in it, Anthony Rapp, was also in Dazed and Confused, so we got invited to some kind of press screening. Shortly after that Rick came to see our play.
WS: He came to visit you guys backstage?
EH: Yeah, exactly like you did. We all went and hung out one night and I ended up talking to Rick until about four in the morning. Then, about six months later, I got a note from him saying, “Check this out,” along with an early script of Before Sunrise. At the time, it was set in San Antonio, Texas. It’s become the most substantive collaboration of my creative life.
WS: Why do you two work so well together?
EH: Rick likes to rehearse, and I love to rehearse. There are some people who think, “I’m such a genius that you’ve got to capture my first take.” I come from a totally different school, which is like that famous line sports coaches use: “You play as you practice.” I love to rehearse. I think things only get better—you only get stronger, your ideas more fleshed out. Luck is the residue of desire.
WS: How did the cast for The Hottest State come together—were you already friends?
EH: Mark Webber had been in Chelsea Walls. He’s what started me thinking about the film because I thought he would be wonderful in the part. The character of Sara [played by Catalina Sandino Moreno] was hard to cast because she has to be both the muse and the foil. Because she’s seen only from William’s point of view, a lot has to remain mysterious. But she had to be the kind of woman you fall in love with and take your entire ego and self-esteem and place in her hands.
WS: How do you account for the changes in their relationship?
EH: What explanation does one get when going through a break up—except that they don’t love you anymore? What explanation makes sense? She fell in love with somebody else? She never really was in love with him? All of this might be true. I always thought the explanation is that if he handled the break up better, they might not have really broken up. What you learn when you’re older is that when somebody says they need space, you give it to them!
WS: You give them more than they ask for.
EH: Exactly. When she says, “I think we need a little space,” Will freaks out and gets angry. And you know what happens when you do that? You lose the girl. I don’t think he has anyone to blame but himself.
WS: The Hottest State is your novel, and it’s also your film, so the content must be important to you. It describes a very romantic character, one for whom emotion and passion are guiding his life. Does that make people more successful seducers? Is it “romantic guys”—rather than cynical playboys—who are most successful with women?
EH: I think all you need to be successful with women, in that kind of, ah, exploitative way, is to want to. So many people out there want to be hurt. The guys who get the most play with women are the ones who are the most cavalier with them. That’s always been my experience. You don’t have to be good-looking to get a lot of ass. History has taught us that.
WS: But don’t you think some guys believe their romantic talk?
EH: Definitely. So many people kid themselves that inside all this vacuous behavior somebody will find the “real me.” They will see through the
façade—“I will be found.” Real intimacy, however, is a very different thing. How to be successful in any kind of long-term way—sharing your life, loving, allowing yourself to be loved—are all life-long struggles. That’s the real work of our lives.
Hawke’s fantastic! I love him.
It is good to see Stillman going back to his roots in journalism.
Ethan Hawke is truly romantic!
