NYGossipGirl Exclusive: Ethan Hawke Interview

NYGossipGirl recently sat down with Ethan Hawke, whose new film, Daybreakers is out in theaters now.

The 39-year-old actor is getting ready to direct Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Minds at the New Group.

“We start previews on January 29, and I wanted to do this play for a really long time,” said Hawke. “I think it’s going to be really great. It stars Keith Carradine, Laurie Metcalf and Josh Hamilton.”

Daybreakers directors, Michael and Peter Spierig were eager to get Hawke who was their first choice for the lead role. After he read the script, he realized that it was a great genre film.

“I’ve been interested in other genre movies, and been offered other genre movies, graphic novels, superheroes, stuff like that. It never interested me,” said Hawke. “I thought it was funny how this embraced being a B movie, and it’s a throwback to a kind of genre filmmaking. There’s a huge message, tucked away in the hidden bowels of a genre movie. Reading this thing, it’s such a fun allegory to how, as a culture, we are vampires, sucking dry our natural resources. I thought it was really smart and funny and clever. They were really passionate. I wanted to do something I had never done before, so I said yes.”

Read the rest after the jump!

To prepare for his role, Hawke looked at other vampire films and also at Brad Pitt’s character in Interview with the Vampire.

“It’s a very hard character to do right. As soon as you start playing a self-loathing undead character, the fun of being undead is that you get to do whatever you want. So you want to be liberated from anxiety. It’s weird,” said Hawke. “I felt like a lot of the times most of the actors who have done it, myself included in this, it’s a struggle not to be boring. All the other characters in the movie are more interesting than you, because there’s nothing worse than watching an introspective, alienated undead person. So I struggled with that. You just have to embrace it. The fun thing for me is that he came alive. I love the notion that when faced with immortality, you actually get depressed. When given back mortality, the fact that you’re going to die, your life becomes filled with hope. There’s something weird to that, but it gets to the core of why our lives are wonderful that we’re not going to last forever.”

No one imagined that vampires would be such a phenomenon. Daybreakers was written two years before Twilight came out in theaters and the directors and the cast didn’t know that when the film finally would be released that many people would be into vampires.

“I have no idea more than anyone else why these things happen. It’s like, there hasn’t been a vampire film in a while, and all of a sudden people start realizing that,” said Hawke. “In a little while, they’re going to be ready for space films again. For a while, all it was, was Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. Now that it’s Avatar, it’s going to be aliens again, because we can do aliens really well now. Then the western will make a comeback. Then before you know it, the gladiator movie will comeback. It’s just an endless cycle of what we get bored of. I think the fun thing about Daybreakers is that it’s the first horror vampire movie in a while. They made the prepubescent vampire movies. Am I so pretentious that I think people think about the themes? Not really.”

When reminiscing about his past roles, Hawke laughs and admits that he has worked with some dumb actors – although he wouldn’t say who they are.

“Have I acted against dumb actors? The answer is yes. Is it deeply disappointing to me? Yes. It takes all kinds in this world,” laughs Hawke. “When I’m directing the play that I’m doing, all I care about is that the actors are smart. They fix everything. It’s so easy to direct the smart actors. When you do a scene with Willem Dafoe, even with a film like this, it’s so easy why he’s Willem Dafoe. He rescues people from bad ideas, left, right and center, in a gentle, kind, story-driven way. If you want to look at his body of work, there are a lot of good scenes there. It’s him that’s doing it. It’s terrific.”

The thing that Hawke doesn’t like about Hollywood movies is that mostly big-budget films get made, while lower budget ones don’t. He had filmed a movie that he was passionate about, but the production company that was releasing the film, recently filed for bankruptcy.

“I try not to place my self-worth into the hands of what the public likes. You have to be a fool not to care. I wish I can be in a movie that does make tons of money. There are great scripts that can’t get green-lit with a guy like me,” said Hawke. “It’s always a balance. If you try to please everyone and make popcorn movies without trying to make things you’re proud of, then you’re going to end up really famous, drunk in a hotel room. I’ve paid the price for a lot of the decisions that I’ve made.

Hawke’s next film is a cop drama called Brooklyn’s Finest where he stars alongside Richard Gere, Wesley Snipes, Ellen Barkin and Don Cheadle.

“Brooklyn’s Finest is kind of like a sequel to Training Day, in a weird way,” laughs Hawke. “It’s a spiritual sequel. Antoine Fuqua directed it. It’s kind of the east coast version of Training Day. It’s not a literal sequel, I just mean it’s the same director, me. It’s similar in its tone and energy.”

Photos: Brad Balfour/Ben Rothstein/ Lionsgate

Posted: January 13th, 2010 under Celebrity Interviews.
Tags: Ethan Hawke

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