Ethan Hawke

Caption	Hawke at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival
Alt	A caucasian male with dark slick hair, wearing a two-piece grey suit, with a white shirt and black tie.
Birth name	Ethan Green Hawke
Birth date	November 06, 1970
Birth place	Austin, Texas, United States
Years active	1984–present
Occupation	Actor, director, writer and novelist
Spouse	Uma Thurman (1998–2004)Ryan Shawhughes (2008–present)

Ethan Green Hawke (born November 6, 1970) is an American actor, writer and film director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role. He then appeared in such films as White Fang (1991), A Midnight Clear (1992), and Alive (1993) before taking a role in the 1994 Generation X drama Reality Bites, for which he gained critical acclaim. In 1995, he starred in the romantic drama Before Sunrise, and later in its sequel Before Sunset (2004).

In 2001, Hawke was cast as a rookie policeman in Training Day, for which he received a Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category. Other films have included the science fiction feature Gattaca (1997), the title role in Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000), the action thriller Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), and the crime drama Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007).

Hawke has appeared in numerous theater productions including The Seagull, Henry IV, Hurlyburly, The Cherry Orchard, The Winter's Tale and The Coast of Utopia, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination. He made his directorial debut with the 2002 independent feature Chelsea Walls. In November 2007, Hawke directed his first play, Jonathan Marc Sherman's Things We Want. Aside from acting, he has written two novels, The Hottest State (1996) and Ash Wednesday (2002). Between 1998 and 2004, Hawke was married to actress Uma Thurman.

Early life

Hawke was born in Austin, Texas, to Leslie Carole (née Green) and James "Jim" Steven Hawke, a high-ranking executive at Conseco. His maternal grandfather, Howard Lemuel Green, had served five terms in the Texas Legislature and was a minor league baseball commissioner. Hawke's parents were students at the University of Texas at the time of his birth, and separated in 1974.

After the separation, Hawke was raised by his mother. The two relocated several times before settling in New York, where Hawke attended the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights. from which he graduated in 1988.

In high school, Hawke aspired to be a writer, but developed an interest in acting. He made his stage debut at age 13, in a school production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, and appearances in West Windsor-Plainsboro High School productions of Meet Me in St. Louis and You Can't Take It with You followed. and after high school graduation he studied acting at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, eventually dropping out after he was cast in Dead Poets Society (1989). He secured his first film role in 1985's Explorers, in which he played alongside River Phoenix as an alien-obsessed schoolboy who builds a spacecraft with his friends. The film received favorable reviews but made poor box office revenues, a failure which Hawke has admitted caused him to quit acting for a brief period after the film's release. Hawke later described the disappointment as difficult to bear at such a young age, adding "I would never recommend that a kid act." the Variety reviewer wrote "Hawke ... gives a haunting performance." With revenue of $235 million worldwide, the film remains Hawke's most commercially successful picture to date. Hawke later described the opportunities he was offered as a result of the film's success as critical to his decision to continue acting: "I didn't want to be an actor and I went back to college. But then the [film's] success was so monumental that I was getting offers to be in such interesting movies and be in such interesting places, and it seemed silly to pursue anything else." According to The Oregonian, "Hawke does a good job as young Jack, being both physically robust but still boyishly naive. He makes Jack's passion for White Fang real and keeps it from being ridiculous or overly sentimental." Hawke then appeared in the war film A Midnight Clear (1992) and 1993's Alive, an adaptation of Piers Paul Read's 1974 book, .

Critical success

Hawke's next part, in the Generation X drama Reality Bites (1994) as Troy, a slacker who mocks the ambitions of his girlfriend (played by Winona Ryder), received critical acclaim. Film critic Roger Ebert called Hawke's performance convincing and noteworthy: "Hawke captures all the right notes as the boorish Troy." The New York Times noted, "Mr. Hawke's subtle and strong performance makes it clear that Troy feels things too deeply to risk failure and admit he's feeling anything at all." Nonetheless, the film was a surprise box office disappointment. The San Francisco Chronicle praised Hawke and Delpy's performances: "[they] interact so gently and simply that you feel certain that they helped write the dialogue. Each of them seems to have something personal at stake in their performances."

Away from acting, Hawke directed the music video for the 1994 song "Stay (I Missed You)" by singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb. He also published his first novel in 1996, The Hottest State, about a love affair between a young actor and a singer. Hawke said of the novel, "Writing the book had to do with dropping out of college, and with being an actor. I didn't want my whole life to go by and not do anything but recite lines. I wanted to try making something else. It was definitely the scariest thing I ever did. And it was just one of the best things I ever did."

In Andrew Niccol's science fiction film Gattaca (1997), "one of the more interesting scripts" Hawke said he had read in "a number of years", Hawke played the role of a man who infiltrates a society of genetically perfect humans by assuming another man's identity in order to realize his dream of space travel. Although Gattaca was not a success at the box office and Hawke's performance was critically well-received. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reviewer wrote that "Hawke, building on the sympathetic-but-edgy presence that has served him well since his kid-actor days, is most impressive". 1998 saw Hawke appearing in Great Expectations, the contemporary film adaptation of the Charles Dickens's novel, and collaborating for a second time with director Richard Linklater in The Newton Boys, based on the true story of the Newton Gang, a family of bank robbers from Uvalde, Texas.

His only movie in 1999 was Snow Falling on Cedars, in which he played a reporter named Ishmael Chambers, who, after being wounded in World War II, comes home to take over his family newspaper after his father's death. The film, based on David Guterson's novel of the same title, received ambivalent reviews and Entertainment Weekly concluded, "Hawke scrunches himself into such a dark knot that we have no idea who Ishmael is or why he acts as he does."

Hawke's next film role was in Michael Almereyda's 2000 film Hamlet, in which he played the title character. The film transposed the famous William Shakespeare play to contemporary New York City, a technique Hawke felt made the play more "accessible and vital". Salon.com wrote: "Hawke certainly isn't the greatest Hamlet of living memory ... but his performance reinforces Hamlet's place as Shakespeare's greatest character. And in that sense, he more than holds his own in the long line of actors who've played the part." In 2001, Hawke appeared in two more Linklater movies: the animated Waking Life, in which he shared a single scene with former co-star Julie Delpy contemplating the afterlife, and the psychological drama Tape, in which he played a small-time drug dealer. Hawke regarded his work in Tape as his "first adult performance".

Training Day and after

Hawke's next role, and one for which he received substantial critical acclaim, came in Training Day (2001). Hawke played rookie cop Jake Hoyt, alongside Denzel Washington, as one of a pair of narcotics detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department spending 24 hours in the gang neighborhoods of South Los Angeles. The film was a box office hit, taking $104 million worldwide, and garnered generally favorable reviews. Variety wrote that Hawke's part "shows signs of coming to new life as a screen actor after somnolent turns in the likes of Snow Falling on Cedars. Hawke adds feisty and cunning flourishes to his part that allow him to respectably hold his own under formidable circumstances." Paul Clinton of CNN reported that Hawke's performance was "totally believable as a doe-eyed rookie going toe-to-toe with a legend [Washington]". Hawke himself described Training Day as his "best experience in Hollywood".

Hawke pursued a number of projects away from acting throughout the early 2000s. He made his directorial feature debut with Chelsea Walls (2002), an independent drama about five struggling artists living in the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York City. Upon its release, the feature received mixed reviews; The Los Angeles Times wrote that Hawke's directorial debut "has brought Nicolette Burdette's play to the screen with fluid grace and a perfect blend of dreaminess and grit", while The Boston Globe stated that his direction is not apparent in Chelsea Walls. The film was critically and financially unsuccessful. A second novel, 2002's Ash Wednesday, was better received. The tale of an AWOL soldier and his pregnant girlfriend, between whose perspectives the novel alternates, The New York Times noted that in the book Hawke displayed "a novelist's innate gifts ... a sharp eye, a fluid storytelling voice and the imagination to create complicated individuals", but was "weaker at narrative tricks that can be taught". In 2003 Hawke made a television appearance, guest starring in the second season of the television series Alias, where he portrayed a mysterious Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent.

In 2004 Hawke returned to film, starring in two features, Taking Lives and Before Sunset. In Taking Lives, a thriller based on Michael Pye's novel of the same name, he portrays a man who can identify a serial killer who has been assuming the identity of his victims. Director D. J. Caruso's decision to cast Hawke was based on the "vulnerability" he displayed in Training Day and believed he could do the same with his character. Upon release, Taking Lives received broadly negative reviews. Despite the film's reception, Hawke's performance was favored by critics; the Star Tribune noted that Hawke "plays a complex character persuasively". Before Sunset, the Linklater-directed sequel to Before Sunrise which Hawke co-wrote with Linklater and Delpy, was more successful, with a contributor of The Hartford Courant reporting that the three collaborators keep Hawke and Delpy's characters "iridescent and fresh", concluding that they are the most delightful and moving of all romantic movie couples. Before Sunset was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Hawke's first screenwriting Oscar nomination.

2005 saw Hawke star in the action thriller Assault on Precinct 13, a loose remake of John Carpenter's 1976 film of the same title, with an updated plot. Hawke played Sergeant Jake Roenick, a Detroit policeman working desk duty in a rundown police station. Assault on Precinct 13 received reasonable reviews; some critics praised the dark swift feel of the film, while others compared it unfavorably to John Carpenter's original. Hawke also starred that year in the political crime thriller Lord of War, playing an Interpol agent chasing an arms dealer played by Nicolas Cage.

In 2006 Hawke was cast in a supporting role in the film Fast Food Nation, an adaptation by Linklater and Eric Schlosser of Schlosser's bestselling 2001 non-fiction book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Hawke directed his second feature, The Hottest State, based on his eponymous 1996 novel. The movie was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Venice International Film Festival and was released in theaters in 2007.

Hawke then appeared alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, and Albert Finney in Sidney Lumet's crime drama Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007). Hawke played an ex-husband in desperate need of child support who decides to rob his parent's jewelry store with his desperate brother (Hoffman), with disastrous consequences. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised Hawke's performance, noting that he "digs deep to create a haunting portrayal of loss". USA Today called the movie "highly entertaining", describing Hawke and Hoffman's performances as excellent.

In 2008 Hawke starred alongside Mark Ruffalo in the crime drama What Doesn't Kill You. Despite the favorable reception, the film was not given a proper theatrical release due to the bankruptcy of its distributor. 2009 saw Hawke appear in two features: New York, I Love You, a romance movie comprising 12 short films, and Staten Island, a crime drama interweaving three storylines. The following year he starred as a vampire researcher trying to save humanity from extinction in the horror-thriller Daybreakers (2010). The feature received reasonable reviews, and earned $51 million worldwide. The film opened to mediocre reviews, yet his performance was well-received, with the New York Daily News concluding, "Hawke – continuing an evolution toward stronger, more intense acting than anyone might've predicted from him 20 years ago – drives the movie."

It was announced that Hawke had signed on to appear opposite Kristin Scott Thomas in The Woman in the Fifth, to play a CIA black ops agent in The Numbers Station, and to portray a violinist in A Late Quartet. Aside from film, Hawke will star as Starbuck, the first officer of the Pequod whaleship, in a television adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick.

Stage career

|alt=A caucasian male with light brown hair and light brown stubble is facing to the left. He is wearing a white long sleeve shirt, and is holding a black microphone.]] Hawke has described theater as his "first love", a place where he is "free to be more creative". Hawke made his Broadway debut in 1992, portraying the playwright Konstantin Treplev in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull at the Lyceum Theater in Manhattan. The following year Hawke was a co-founder and the artistic director of Malaparte, a Manhattan theater company, which survived until 2000. Outside of the New York stage, Hawke made an appearance in a 1995 production of Sam Shepard's Buried Child, directed by Gary Sinise at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. In 1999, he starred as Kilroy in the Tennessee Williams play Camino Real at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Hawke returned to Broadway in a November 2003 production of Henry IV, playing Henry Percy, also called Harry Hotspur. New York magazine wrote: "Ethan Hawke’s Hotspur ... is a compelling, ardent creation." but allowed "[He's] great fun to watch as he fumes and fulminates." New York Times critic Ben Brantley praised Hawke's performance as the central character Eddie, reporting that "he captures with merciless precision the sense of a sharp mind turning flaccid". The performance earned Hawke a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor.

In November 2006, Hawke starred as Mikhail Bakunin in Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, a nine-hour long production, at the Lincoln Center in New York. Reviewing the production the Los Angeles Times complimented Hawke's take on Bakunin, writing: "Ethan Hawke buzzes in and out as Bakunin, a strangely appealing enthusiast on his way to becoming a famous anarchist." The performance earned Hawke his first Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play. In November 2007 he directed Things We Want, a two-act play by Jonathan Marc Sherman, for the artist-driven Off-Broadway company The New Group. The play concerns four characters, three of whom are alcoholics. The production starred Paul Dano, Peter Dinklage, Josh Hamilton, and Zoe Kazan. The Variety reviewer wrote: "While Ethan Hawke uses the space confidently, he allows his talented cast to push mannered material further into self-consciousness." New York magazine praised Hawke's "understated direction", particularly his ability to "steer a gifted cast away from the histrionics".

The following year Hawke received the Michael Mendelson Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Theater. In his acceptance speech Hawke said "I don't know why they're honoring me. I think the real reason they are honoring me is to help raise money for the theater company. Whenever the economy gets hit hard, one of the first thing to go is people's giving, and last on that list of things people give to is the arts because they feel it's not essential. I guess I'm here to remind people that the arts are essential to our mental health as a country." The two productions, launched in New York as part of The Bridge Project produced by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Old Vic, went on a transatlantic tour in six countries from January to August. The Cherry Orchard won a mixed review from the New York Daily News, which wrote "Ethan Hawke ... fits the image of the 'mangy' student Trofimov, but one wishes he didn't speak with a perennial frog in his throat." Hawke's performance in The Winter's Tale earned him a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play.

In January 2010, Hawke directed his second play, A Lie of the Mind, by Sam Shepard on the New York stage. It was the first major Off-Broadway revival of the play since its 1985 premiere. and its "weird juxtaposition of humor and mysticism". In his review for the New York Times, Ben Brantley praised the production's "scary, splendid clarity", and applauded Hawke for providing his ensemble "with a mood-stirring mise-en-scène", and more importantly, for eliciting a performance from his cast that "connoisseurs of precision acting will be savoring for years to come". Entertainment Weekly commented that although A Lie of the Mind "wobbles a bit in its late stages", Hawke's "hearty" revival managed to "resurrect the spellbinding uneasiness of the original". The production garnered five Lucille Lortel Award nominations including Outstanding Revival, and earned Hawke a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play.

Hawke next starred in a new play Blood from a Stone by Tommy Nohilly. The Off-Broadway production began preview performances on December 13, 2010, with limited engagement through February 19, 2011.

Personal life

On May 1, 1998, Hawke married actress Uma Thurman, whom he met on the set of Gattaca (1997). Their relationship resulted in two children, daughter Maya Ray Thurman-Hawke (born July 8, 1998) and son Levon Roan Thurman-Hawke (born January 15, 2002). The couple separated in 2003, amid allegations of Hawke's infidelity, and filed for divorce the following year. Hawke married for a second time in June 2008, wedding Ryan Shawhughes, who had briefly worked as a nanny to his and Thurman's children, before graduating from Columbia University. Shawhughes gave birth to their daughter, Clementine Jane Hawke, on July 18, 2008.

Hawke is a long-time supporter of The Doe Fund, which helps homeless people obtain housing and employment. He has served as a co-chair of the New York Public Library's Young Lions Committee, one of New York's major philanthropic boards. In 2001, Hawke co-founded the Young Lions Fiction Award, an annual prize for achievements in fiction writing by authors under age 35. In November 2010, he was honored as a Library Lion by the New York Public Library.

Hawke lives in Chelsea, a Manhattan neighborhood in New York City, and owns a small island in Nova Scotia. Hawke is a relative of Tennessee Williams on his father's side: Cornelius Williams, father of Tennessee Williams, was Hawke's great-great-uncle. He supports the United States Democratic Party and supported Bill Bradley, John Kerry and Barack Obama for President of the United States in 2000, 2004 and 2008, respectively.

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- | 1985 || Explorers || Ben Crandall || |- | 1988 || Lion's Den || Unnamed || |- |rowspan="2"| 1989 || Dead Poets Society || Todd Anderson || |- |Dad || Billy Tremont || |- |rowspan="2"| 1991 || White Fang || Jack Conroy || |- |Mystery Date || Tom McHugh || |- |rowspan="2"| 1992 || Waterland || Mathew Price || |- |A Midnight Clear || Will Knott || |- |rowspan="2"| 1993 || Rich in Love || Wayne Frobiness || |- |Alive || Nando Parrado || |- |rowspan="3"| 1994 || Reality Bites || Troy Dyer || Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss |- |Quiz Show || Don Quixote Student || |- |Floundering || Jimmy || |- |rowspan="2"| 1995 || Before Sunrise || Jesse Wallace || Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss |- |Search and Destroy || Roger || |- | 1997 || Gattaca || Vincent Anton Freeman / Jerome Morrow || |- |rowspan="2"| 1998 || Great Expectations || Finnegan 'Finn' Bell || |- |The Newton Boys || Jess Newton || |- |rowspan="3"| 1999 || The Velocity of Gary || Nat || |- |Joe the King || Len Coles || |- |Snow Falling on Cedars || Ishmael Chambers || |- | 2000 || Hamlet || Hamlet || |- |rowspan="3"| 2001 || Waking Life || Jesse Wallace || |- |Tape || Vince || |- |Training Day || Jake Hoyt || | Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorNominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role |- |rowspan="2"| 2002 || Chelsea Walls || Sam (voice) || |- |The Jimmy Show || Ray || |- | 2003 || Alias || CIA Agent James L. Lennox || Episode: "Double Agent" |- |rowspan="2"| 2004 || Taking Lives || James Costa / Martin Asher || |- |Before Sunset || Jesse Wallace || Nominated — Academy Award for Best Adapted ScreenplayNominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best ScreenplayNominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Adapted ScreenplayNominated — Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay |- |rowspan="2"| 2005 || Assault on Precinct 13 || Sergeant Jake Roenick || |- |Lord of War || Agent Jack Valentine || |- |rowspan="3"| 2006 || One Last Thing... || Earl Jameison || |- |The Hottest State || Vince || |- |Fast Food Nation || Pete || |- | 2007 || Before the Devil Knows You're Dead || Hank Hanson || Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast |- | 2008 || What Doesn't Kill You || Paulie McDougan || |- |rowspan="2"| 2009 || New York, I Love You || Writer || |- |Staten Island || Sully Halverson || |- |rowspan="3"| 2010 || Daybreakers || Edward Dalton || |- |Brooklyn's Finest || Detective Salvatore "Sal" Procida || |- |Tonight at Noon || Lefty || post-production |- | 2013 || Boyhood || Dad || filming |}

Writings

References

External links

Ethan Hawke Biography by Turner Classic Movies

Ethan Hawke Interview 2007 on Texas Monthly Talks

Category:1970 births Category:Actors from Texas Category:American child actors Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American novelists Category:American screenwriters Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:American theatre directors Category:Carnegie Mellon University alumni Category:Living people Category:New York Democrats Category:New York University alumni Category:People from Austin, Texas Category:People from Manhattan Category:Writers from New Jersey