At 54, Ethan Hawke Appreciates His ‘More Interesting’ Older Self

How do you feel about getting older?

Well, there’s no alternative, right? The important thing I always think to remember is that it’s not personal. It happens to everyone. It’s part of what we’re here to do. One of the things you learn as an actor is when you’re young, you don’t realize how much of the entertainment industry is geared and pitched towards young people. You don’t realize it because it’s pitched to you. And then as you start getting older, you realize that the world at this particular moment isn’t as interested in maturity, grace, wisdom — all the benefits that come from maturity, you know, are somehow not sexy to people in the entertainment business. And so that presents a challenge. And simultaneously, there’s this huge opportunity for playing richer and stronger, more multidimensional characters.

Like Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon?

The reason why Rick took so long to make this movie is to wait for me to be older. Most directors would just cast somebody older, but he really wanted me. He was patient enough to wait until I was more interesting — and because he was confident that would happen. And so that’s kind of wonderful. And parts this year — in The Lowdown, in Blue Moon — are two of the greatest parts I’ve ever had. And so I guess like everything, one thing is taken away and something else is given. And the trick is, can you see what you’re being given and can you be happy with what you have?

Ethan Hawke and Maya Hawke participate in a roundtable during the Stockholm Film Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award 2023.

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Your daughter Maya is now a young actress in the entertainment world, with a lead in Stranger Things. Did you encourage or discourage her to go into the business? How did you feel about that?

She didn’t care what I thought. There was no stopping her. And that’s the right attitude. Because if that’s the attitude you have, it actually can’t go badly. Because, my line about it is if your focus is what you can give the arts, you’re going to be really happy. And if your focus is what can the arts give you back, you’re going to be really unhappy. … But if you really love it and you’d like to teach it and you’d like to be a part of it in any capacity, then good things happen.

Did you give her any advice?

Advice is useless if not asked for. It’s only helpful on a specific … Some assistant director will be getting on our nerves and I might have a good trick for how not to let that rattle your nerves or something. But she’s the real thing. And she’s at the point now where she helps me not be stuck in the 1990s and understand what the business is working now.

Did anybody give you good advice?

Peter Weir, 81, Robin Williams, Olympia Dukakis were extremely helpful in my career. I remember because it’s apropos of the moment: The last time I saw Robert Redford, he told me to stop wearing cowboy hats because people will think I’m losing my hair. And I thought that was really funny. And he was very helpful and kind to me when I was younger, too. He was the first real champion of Before Sunrise. A lot of people weren’t interested in that movie when it first came out. And he made us the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival [1995] and he introduced the film, made it seem like it was a real proper movie. But there was just really so many. Denzel Washington was so good to me, taught me so much.

(From left) Julie Delpy and Hawke in 1995’s “Before Sunrise.”

Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

So did you stop wearing cowboy hats?

No, I did not. Like I said, unasked-for advice is never listened to!

Who in the next generation of actors is coming along that excites you?

I get insecure about saying one person — Paul Mescal excites me, he’s terrific; Jacob Elordi is great; and John David Washington is phenomenal. There are so many people.

What’s next? I enjoyed The Last Movie Stars [Hawke directed the 2022 documentary about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward].  Do you want to direct again? Would you go back to a documentary?

Yeah, I just made a documentary that we premiered at Telluride in August on Merle Haggard [Highway 99: A Double Album]. He’s a really great poet and songwriter, and I think could be a valuable voice right now. He managed to sing and write politically without ever being left or right, and really wrote from a humanist point of view.  And I think he could be a useful person to revisit in a time period where people are having so much difficulty listening to each other.

Hawke in 1989’s “Dead Poets Society.”

Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

When did you know, “OK,  this is going to work out, I’m going to be able to be an actor for my life”?

It happened on The Good Lord Bird. Because I was finally playing older men. If I can make this turn, there’s no turn after this. I’m going to be able to finish the race.

That was just five years ago — is there that much insecurity in the acting profession?

Yeah. It’s a strange lifestyle that you don’t understand when you first get into it about never knowing what your next job is. And an understanding that you’re only as good as your opportunities. If you don’t have an opportunity to excel, you can’t excel. And so I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for the opportunities I’ve had. But you’re never sure that they’re coming. And sometimes people do great work that is ignored or mocked.  And some people do mediocre work that is heralded and given prizes. And you just don’t know. You just have to keep marching.

What’s your perfect day off?

My two youngest [daughters with wife Ryan Hawke] are soccer players — the same soccer team now. One’s a senior [Clementine, 17] and one’s a freshman [Indiana, 14], and they’ve never been on the same soccer team before. They played a game yesterday, and they both scored. And that was a perfect day.