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.