Ethan Hawke: Rich or Famous?

Ummm, tortured youth. My favorite thing. I'm beginning to enjoy this interview.

"All right," I say. "Let's talk about your peers."

"Who are my peers?"

"That's what I'm asking you. Who is it that you get compared to? Who are the actors who get the same scripts you do?"

"It seems like I get sent all the scripts that River Phoenix doesn't feel like doing. I guess Keanu Reeves, Christian Slater. I don't know, because I don't often hear about who else is reading for the movies I am. I bet Loren Dean, now. I'm trying to think of New Yorkers but I can't."

"Are you tempted to move to L.A.?"

"No way," he says. "I love New York. I mean, it's certainly crazy, but at least in New York you can't ignore things. When I go to L.A., I know there's gangs and poverty, but hey, where the fuck are they? You go from one place where wealthy people are, and the next place you go, there's the same white, rich people. When people talk about the huge Hispanic population in L.A., I say, 'Really, where do they live?' In New York, you've got Donald Trump, Woody Allen, a crack addict and a regular Joe, and they're all on the same subway car."

"Subway car?" I ask, remembering the guy who drooled on my newspaper the last time I rode the subway. Could it have been The Donald in disguise?

"Okay, bad example. But they're on the same block."

"If you had your choice," I ask, switching tracks midstream, "and you couldn't be both, would you rather be rich or famous?"

"Oh boy. Now let me think. If I was rich, I could just make all the movies I wanted to, or do all these great plays, and I wouldn't care if anyone went to see them. Which, being that I had given up fame, they wouldn't. I could be like John Cassavetes, not that he was so rich, but he certainly made the most incredible films. I worked with Seymour Cassel on White Fang, and he told us all these stories about Cassavetes that had me salivating.

"But," he continues, "if I was really famous, then maybe all the rich people would like me, and they would give me money and let me make the films I wanted to. Rich or famous? And I can't have both, huh?"

"Well, not in this game you can't. Of course, in real life you're probably going to have both. But you still won't be able to make the films you want."

Hawke groans. "I know. Ya know, I just did some work on a film with Jeremy Irons, Waterland. The guy's amazing. And he probably can't get the kinds of films made that he wants to, so what the fuck am I bitching about?"

"My point exactly," I say, although until now I wasn't exactly sure I had a point. I'm thinking about which of Ethan's roles River Phoenix turned down, and which of River's Ethan craved the most. "Were you dying to play a gay narcoleptic?" I ask.

"Are you kidding?" he yells, literally jumping out of his seat. "Of course. Definitely. There was real character behind that. What I loved about A Midnight Clear is that my character there is really bright enough to understand where everyone else is coming from, and all that really does is wash away his own feelings. Like Arye Gross's character tries to convince me to do some thing and my character is like 'Okay, that sounds great.' And then Frank Whaley's character is saying, 'No, no let's not do that.' And my character understands that point of view, too. And then, when Gary Sinise's character says, 'No, just fuck it all and save our own butts,' I can relate to that one as well."

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