Category Archives: Ethan Hawke

Maya Hawke: ‘My parents didn’t want to have me do bit-parts in their movies’

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The Stranger Things star on viral fame, the challenges of dyslexia, and convincing her actor parents she wanted to follow in their footsteps

New York-born Maya Hawke, 23, began her career in modelling before making her screen debut as Jo March in the BBC’s 2017 adaptation of Little Women. She was Linda “Flowerchild” Kasabian in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and plays Robin in Netflix hit Stranger Things. Hawke now stars in Mainstream, directed and written by Gia Coppola. She lives in New York and is the daughter of actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke.

Your new film Mainstream is a satire on viral fame. Are people too reliant on their mobile phones nowadays?
I’m sure they are, but it would be hypocritical of me to be judgmental because I love my phone. I love that I can go for a walk, put on headphones, listen to Phoebe Bridgers, feel melancholy and cry. I love that I can take a bath, play an audiobook and learn about neuroscience while I wash my hair. For someone who travels all the time and hates being alone, that connectivity is awesome. I use my phone all the time but I’m sure it’s rotting my brain and separating me from real connections. For my generation it’s hard to know life without it and what we’re missing out on.

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Ethan Hawke: ‘It’s just a petrifying time to speak about male sexuality’

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The Oscar-nominated actor on his new novel set during a production of Henry IV, dealing with bad reviews and art’s role in examining all human behaviour

Ethan Hawke is an actor, writer and director, star of the films Dead Poets Society, Training Day and Boyhood. He has been nominated for Academy Awards for his acting, and for his writing on Before Sunset and Before Midnight. Hawke describes theatre as his first love and has featured in a number of plays by Sam Shepard, as well as in productions of work by Shakespeare, Chekhov, and his own second cousin twice-removed, Tennessee Williams.

Hawke’s first novel, The Hottest State, was published in 1996. His second, Ash Wednesday, came out in 2002. Now, with A Bright Ray of Darkness, Hawke brings us a novel that is structured around a stage production of Henry IV, Part 1. The book’s narrator, William Harding, is a hard-drinking film star who seeks to overcome a period of personal turmoil by throwing himself into his role as Henry Percy.

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Ethan Hawke on regrets, race and surviving Hollywood: ‘River Phoenix was a big lesson to me’

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Hawke could have been a superstar to rival Leonardo DiCaprio or Matt Damon. But, as he turns 50, the actor is thinking more about the dangers he avoided than the opportunities he turned down

“Do you mind if I do something not attractive?” Ethan Hawke asks. In a vintage T-shirt, with his hair in a half-ponytail, he looks every inch the artsy Brooklyn dad that he is. “I’m starving. Would it be very rude if I eat lunch? I’ll try to be neat and orderly about it.” We’re talking by video chat and I tell him I’ll forgive his lunch if he forgives the noise of kids and dogs in my background. “Never apologise for kids. My two younger ones are Zoom schooling now, so I’m hiding in my office where the dogs are, so we’re even,” he says, tucking into his takeaway.

On the day of our interview, Hawke’s 50th birthday is a week away; if that makes those of us who remember him as a smooth-cheeked schoolboy in Dead Poets Society feel old, imagine how Hawke feels. “Forty-nine sounds a lot younger than 50,” he says with self-mocking mournfulness. Will he celebrate? “My older kids are coming over, so I’ll do a dinner with the six of us, which is about as much fun as we can have these days,” he says.

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