How Ethan Hawke's Role in 'Boyhood' Rejuvenated His Love for Acting
The actor's latest movie is darker than his usual roles.
— -- The list of acclaimed films for Ethan Hawke over the past three decades goes on and on: “Training Day,” "Before Sunrise," "Gattaca," "Reality Bites" and so many others.
But Hawke, 44, admits that his role in a small movie such as "Boyhood," for which he earned a well-deserved Oscar nomination, rejuvenated his passion for acting in a big way.
"The success of 'Boyhood' kind of made me feel really ... I mean, it was a crazy pipe dream," he told ABC News about the movie, which was filmed over a 12-year span. "As you get more and more adult, you start to think it's time to grow up and have a real job you hate like everyone else."
The welcoming reception not only from the audience but from critics and the Academy made Hawke feel like independent cinema has a place in the world of superhero blockbusters.
"I felt like that was always my goal: to make interesting, eccentric movies, but also have them be relevant to people," he said. "It keeps you believing that it's worth trying. I love movies and this has been one of the best years of my life professionally by far."
Hawke is proud to participate in a wide range of projects in recent years.
"I've had a really big, disparate interest in cinema. My interest is a wide net,” he said. “To get to make a political film, to get to make a documentary, to get to make a little, personal indie movie, it's really exciting for me. So, 25 years of working in this profession, I'm at a moment, where I'm able to do things the way I've been wanting to do them."
Hawke added his current slate of films and their success is "really inspiring to me, because sometimes it's easy to think, 'Oh, it doesn't matter. Nothing you do matters and it all falls into some void.' Then you star to realize, it does matter."
Hawke spoke to ABC News about his latest film, "Good Kill," which is out in theaters today and is darker than the soulful actor’s usual roles. In the film, he plays Major Thomas Egan, a former military pilot, now flying drones and bombing targets hailed as potential threats. The line gets blurred and the movie – which also features Bruce Greenwood, January Jones, Jake Abel and Zoë Kravitz – explores Egan’s life at home as his drinking spirals out of control.
"It's a difficult movie to talk about because the subject matter is so tough," he said. "The relationship between cinema and war has been pretty tight throughout the years. It's a really useful way for us average citizens to learn about what's happening."
Warfare tactics have changed dramatically during Hawke’s career. The first Gulf War happened when he was in his early 20s. Today, Predator drones are employed.
"This is an interesting thing soldiers are being asked to do, this remote combat," he added. "These guys live in Vegas and they are making mortal decisions on an impoverished world half the globe away. Then they can go home and play video games. You read it, it feels like science fiction, yet it's a period piece. The movie is set in 2010."
The movie addresses "interesting moral decisions," but tactics that also save lives, Hawke said. He added that perpetual warfare could be a byproduct of drones.
"If you have boots on the ground and you win hearts and minds, you can win a war with people," he said. "Whether or not you can win a war with drones, remains to be seen."
Technology fascinates Hawke. He said after screening the movie at the Tribeca Film Festival, there was a Q&A and no one was freely watching the panel – they were filming it with their phones.
"It was a sea of phones I was looking at, not the people," he said. "There this whole detachment happening and I don't know what it means."
As for how getting into the role affected the actor's life, he admits that he has to compartmentalize with this and other projects.
"It's very strange to play 'Macbeth' four hours a night, where you are a savage, murdering lunatic, then pick your kids up from school and try to go to a parent-teacher conference," he said. "You do start to feel schizophrenic. That's just the life of an actor."
Hawke's character in “Good Kill” drinks vodka "like it's water" due to the mental effects of modern-day warfare. The role presented a departure from his usual roles.
"I've never been asked to play a part where I talked less," he said. "I think I have 15 lines in the whole movie."
This is the third movie Hawke has done with director Andrew Niccol, following “Gattaca” and “Lord of War.” Hawke is impressed with Niccol's ability to tackle profound subject matter.
"The arms trading in 'Lord of War,' was really interesting to me, because every time you see 14-year-old kids in the Congo waging revolution, you realize, somebody sold those guys those guns," he said. "And they are probably American and we really can't pass these gun control laws, because it has to do with people making a lot of money off the third world killing themselves. It's really complicated. That's what I love about his work. It's thought-provoking."
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