Ethan Hawke: Rich or Famous?

"Just like real life, huh?"

"Yes. I mean, I can change my mind a million times on just about any issue. I was thinking about your rich or famous question..."

"Listen," I say, "it was just a little game. Don't get stuck on it. Besides, you don't really get to make those kind of choices. It's not either/or. Rather, it'll be, okay, you want money? Great, but you have to give up your firstborn. Or, you want to be famous? Sure. But you'll just have to live with that herpes sore on your lip."

Hawke looks like he wants to gag.

"Well, it was just a scenario," I say in my own defense, and quickly change the topic.

"Whose work do you admire?"

Hawke, who seemed so guarded at first, suddenly gets a gee whiz look on his face and starts rattling them off. "I really respect and admire Sean Penn. I think Jeff Bridges has a remarkable body of work. John Cusack, because he did all those teen films but he never sold out and now his work is fantastic. I love Bill Hurt, although I did have to walk out on The Doctor this summer. I had a serious throat operation once, and as soon as I heard him clear his throat and I realized the nature of his illness, I was out of there. I've already said Jeremy Irons."

"Do you study acting?"

"This sounds bad, I know, but I studied acting and I don't study now. I had a hard time studying."

"One of the only things I know for sure," I tell him, "is that those of us who were really, really miserable in school are the ones who go on to have productive, happy lives. I don't know if that holds true for acting..."

"I'll take my chances. I want to work with people who make it really hard for me, who challenge me to do the best I can. Two years of theater school couldn't teach me what I learned from Jeremy Irons. Until I worked with him, I had no idea how much I didn't know," he says. "I thought acting was like, some people can be natural in a really unnatural environment, and then, it's just a question of how interesting your personality is. Then I met Jeremy. I don't want to put myself up for my personality to be judged. I'm not that confident. It's hard enough to do that with my friends. I'm not sure if I really have one!"

"Trust me," I say. "You do. I'm always right about this stuff."

"Right now," Hawke says with a grin, "I'm inclined to believe you. You can get so fucked in this business. You read a script and you know it sucks. No question. And then the head of the studio comes to you and says, 'We really like you, kid. We think you're so smart and blah, blah, blah.' And you go home that night, and you look at that script again, and damn, it starts to look pretty good."

"I'm in turmoil just listening to you."

"I know, I'm sorry," he says, meaning it. "I have that effect on people. I go back and forth, worrying about what's good for my career, as opposed to what's good for my life and my heart. You do some schlock movie and you know it sucks. And then there's not too many other scripts around and they offer you another shitty script, and you want to prove that you were better than it seemed in that first one, so you do the second schlocky film. The trouble with success young is that I'm not clear about what I want. And I'm never going to get it until I know what it is. I could bitch about how 90 percent of the actors in L.A. aren't as good as I am, and they can get a movie made. A movie like Mobsters comes out and gets all this press, and I read it and I knew it was a piece of shit. Mobsters may be a bad example because it didn't make money, but I start to think, am I a moron because I'm making films like A Midnight Clear? But then I have to get centered and tell myself that I have to know what I feel comfortable doing."

"Stop whining already," I advise. "You're twenty-fucking-one years old, you've had this fantastic few years: a hit movie, four months living in Alaska making White Fang, you've worked with great people, you have a job, for Chrissakes ..."

"Well," he says, not in the least bit chastised, "the movie business gives us all this time to sit around and talk about ourselves, and isn't that fun? So this is part of what you get."

"This sure is fun," I admit.

"At least until I read it," he says. "You could make me sound like the greatest guy in the world, or the most self-indulgent asshole that ever lived."

"Are you?"

"Self-indulgent? I hope so. Oh God, Martha, I have no fucking idea. I'm 21 years old. Give me a break."

"Okay, okay. I will. Let's talk about someone else's movies, because, truthfully, I hate art."

"I saw Kafka last night," he says. "I was thinking of how great Theresa Russell is, and how great she is to look at, although she's not on screen nearly long enough."

"Did you see Whore?"

Hawke laughs until he begins to cough. "No, but every time I saw the marquee, I would get hysterical." Here he spreads his hands across an imaginary sky. "Theresa Russell, Whore. I kept imagining one that said, Ethan Hawke, Asshole."

"No, no," I say. "How 'bout Ethan Hawke, Crazy Cock?"

We leave convinced that we've come up with something that could make Hawke both rich and famous.

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Martha Frankel wrote "It's In His Kiss" for our November issue.

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