Etched across his face are the lines formed from a life lived, more expressive than some of the smoothed-out visages of his contemporaries, and one that fits more inside the frame of a creatively-led project than mugging for cameras on the red carpet.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people\u2019s initial north star is to be f…ing rich and have an aeroplane. I was super interested in the people who made a real contribution to the arts,\u201d he told GQ earlier this month<\/p>\n
Perhaps that\u2019s the key to Hawke\u2019s longevity, the pursuit of creativity and authenticity rather than the massive paycheques and royalties that come with blockbuster franchises.<\/p>\n
If you scan through Hawke\u2019s filmography, he hasn\u2019t done a Jurassic Park, a Star Wars or a Fast & Furious.<\/p>\n
The closest to a movie franchise is the Before trilogy, the lowkey romantic dramas on which he worked with indie king Richard Linklater and Julie Delpy. He did a Marvel TV show (Moon Knight) but it was probably the MCU\u2019s weirdest entry with its reality-challenged, trippy narrative.<\/p>\n
![\"As](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/e346741387bfe46f1240748ade7d59f4bcaaecf7.jpg\")
As Gen X icon Troy in Reality Bites. Credit: Universal Pictures<\/p>\n
Hawke has worked with Linklater nine times. Their partnership also included Boyhood, an epic coming-of-age drama that was filmed over 12 years, and netted Hawke three of his four Oscar nominations \u2014 two for screenplay with Linklater and Delpy for Before Sunset and Before Midnight, and one for supporting actor for Boyhood.<\/p>\n
He and Linklater reunited \u2014 again \u2014 for Blue Moon, which is due for release in January in Australia. Hawke plays Lorenz Hart, the songwriter who with Richard Rodgers, composed some truly iconic songs including My Funny Valentine.<\/p>\n
A prolific actor, creator and writer, Hawke is always working. His output is so consistent that some years, he has four or five movies in release.<\/p>\n
Before Blue Moon hits the big screen, there are two other Hawke titles out in the next month. This week, it\u2019s The Lowdown, a scruffy neo-noir crime show with a comedic bent from Sterlin Harjo, featuring a gonzo performance from Hawke as an investigator reporter with a penchant for scrapes.<\/p>\n
He also reprises his role as The Grabber in horror movie Black Phone 2, a character he originally turned down because he didn\u2019t want to play a child murderer, until he read the script and decided he wanted to support director Scott Derrickson, with whom he previously worked with on Sinister, tell his story about growing up in bad place.<\/p>\n
![\"Ethan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/652915bc56c233d9594529dedb64986e5f5868bd.jpg\")
Ethan Hawke was part of the ensemble cast of Dead Poets Society. Credit: Buena Vista<\/p>\n
Hawke has no qualms about being the support act, whether that was in Boyhood, Training Day or in The Good Lord Bird, a well-reviewed miniseries he co-created and starred in. The story and the work is what matters.<\/p>\n
He started as a child actor in the 1985 sci-fi movie Explorers, which was also the debut of River Phoenix, and by his second feature, he was working alongside Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.<\/p>\n
Reality Bites, the 1994 Ben Stiller-directed movie that is one of the defining Gen X vibe pieces, is what shot him to stardom. Hawke\u2019s performance as the disenchanted but soulful Troy made hearts flutter.<\/p>\n
It was at that point Hawke\u2019s career could have gone down a different path \u2014 he auditioned for Titanic but lost, obviously, to Leonardo DiCaprio. But he continued to pick interesting projects with the likes of Great Expectations, Gattaca, Hamlet and Before the Devil Knows You\u2019re Dead.<\/p>\n
He published six books, and wrote and\/or directed films including Chelsea Walls, The Hottest State and Blaze. He took unusual roles in other parts of the world, such as Australian film Predestination, and worked with fiercely independent filmmakers such as Paul Schrader (First Reformed).<\/p>\n
To some, perhaps younger people, Hawke is maybe better known as Maya Hawke\u2019s dad. Maya is the daughter he shares with his first wife, Uma Thurman, and the two of them worked together on the 2023 film Wildcat, which he directed and co-wrote and which she starred in.<\/p>\n
![\"First](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/313cfe2b59e6db98b52fd66c5dfa39c364ef4981.jpg\")
First Reformed. Credit: A24<\/p>\n
The younger Hawke has been one of the few second-generation stars that managed the nepo baby debate with grace, openly admitting that, of course, she had privileges others didn\u2019t. She hasn\u2019t shied away from publicly associating with her famous parents and, in her short career so far, has carved out a similar path in switching between mainstream and arthouse projects.<\/p>\n
When the two Hawkes were promoting Wildcat, they made a stop at the Criterion Closet, a social media ritual that involves stars picking out their favourite movies from the curated Criterion Collection.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a chance to prove your cinephile cred \u2014 and their banter gave the impression that it was just a continuation of conversations they\u2019ve been having her whole life.<\/p>\n
For the record, among the older Hawke\u2019s selections were Frances Ha (his favourite Greta Gerwig performance), French classic Les Enfants du Paradis, and Peter Weir\u2019s Picnic at Hanging Rock (he worked with Weir on Dead Poets Society).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that mainstream superstardom has eluded Hawke, it was never his ambition. Whether through accident or design, he established a template for a successful career that didn\u2019t rely on selling out.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of the reasons why when you see Hawke in anything, you\u2019re always entranced by whatever he\u2019s doing. You know he wanted to be there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You never have to wait long before another Ethan Hawke sighting. The American actor has been a steady…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,2396,156,593,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-44096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-culture","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}