Actor Spotlight: Ethan Hawke
Hawke is having a huge 2022, so we dove into two of his best performances
Ethan Hawke is having quite the 2022. After appearing in The Northman and Marvel’s Moon Knight TV series, he’s the lead in this weekend’s horror release The Black Phone, in addition to his part in the Knives Out sequel coming later this year. He’s a busy man.
A personal favorite of Do You Like Apples, Hawke has been one of the most thoughtful movie stars around for the last few decades. Since he burst onto the scene in Dead Poets Society, he’s been weaving through different genres, working with great filmmakers, and challenging himself like few actors of his stature do. We wrote about a couple of our favorite Hawke performances, and you can find more in our archive section below.
Billy recommends…
Dead Poets Society
Ethan Hawke’s first big movie and juicy role, but at first watch he is not the actor that is seemingly going to have the brightest or longest career. On second, third, and so on watch… he is clearly the young actor that is asked to do the most and leaps off the screen in the last third of the movie. Dead Poets Society is a launching point for the young stars and legitimizes an iconic comedic actor as a dramatic force.
Director Peter Weir and star Robin Williams is a good enough poster to get plenty of people in the seats during the opening weekend release, but it is the students' performances and storylines that are going to make this an ageless classic. Each student has a distinct personality, ranging from shy new kid to the most punchable new kid you have ever seen. Hawke plays Todd Anderson, a shy incoming new student that is living in the glory of his older brother's shadow. Luckily he is paired up with Neil Perry, a student who exudes confidence, but is being smothered into a calculated life by his father. Mr. Keating, played by Williams, is a guiding light for all of the students, being hardest on Todd because of his reluctance to try.
Even though I’m sure most of us have seen this movie I’ll keep the plot turns on the down low. Hawke as Todd is a unique and accurate look at the growth of young students. Often an insecure and shy student crescendos as a loud boisterous leader at the end, but not Todd. Dead Poets Society leads Todd on a path of growth, but in a world where any deviation from their vision of what a “man” should be is punished harshly. Hawke’s ability to weave in and out of that crushing insecurity, increased confidence, and constant threat of authority is really a marvel to behold. A gift he has exemplified at every step of his career.
There are many reasons to revisit Dead Poets Society, Hawke as Todd is not often the cited one. Go back in for Williams and that wonderful score, but focus on what Hawke is doing. Then binge his whole filmography while you’re at it. It is a special career that is often overlooked.
Streaming on Hulu
Drew recommends…
Gattaca
Ethan Hawke has always been adept at playing earnest strivers, characters that have idealistic dreams and work toward them with a singular focus. This makes him a natural fit for Vincent Freeman in Gattaca. In the film’s dystopian future, eugenics is common, as parents conceive children through genetic selection (called “Valids” in the movie) to guarantee offspring free of disorder and defect. Vincent was conceived naturally (an “In-Valid”), and as he is only expected to live until 30, society bars him from anything more than a low-level job. However, Vincent is set on going to space against all odds.
Written and directed by Andrew Niccol in one of the best filmmaking debuts of the 90s, Gattaca is many things: sci-fi thriller, romantic drama, murder mystery, and thought-provoking exploration of technology, ethics, and fate. Somehow the movie doesn’t feel overstuffed; instead, it’s a rare breed of intelligent thriller, more concerned with the ideas in play than the action or mystery. This also makes Hawke – who is in many ways the sensitive, thinking man’s movie star – a good fit in the lead role.
Just to get a chance to realize his dream, Vincent fakes his identity as a Valid named Jerome (Jude Law), who was paraylzed in a car accident. To slip by the aerospace corporation’s barriers, Vincent uses samples of Jerome’s hair, skin, blood, and urine. Still in his mid-20s at the time of filming, Hawke uses his fresh-faced idealism to his advantage in playing the determined Vincent. You totally buy that this character would go to such great lengths to prove to himself that his fate as a second-class citizen is only an illusion.
In addition to working with Niccol on his first film, Gattaca gave Hawke the chance to act alongside other young 90s stars like Law and Uma Thurman (who would marry Hawke just a year later). Given the youth and inexperience behind the movie, it could be surprising that Gattaca is as visionary and insightful as it is, but the presence of Hawke, even relatively early in his career, lends the film an engaged curiosity at the center. It’s one of those wonderful marriages between star and material.
Streaming on Netflix