Biography for
Ethan Hawke More at IMDb Pro »

Date of Birth

6 November 1970, Austin, Texas, USA

Birth Name

Ethan Green Hawke

Height

5' 10½" (1.79 m)

Spouse

Ryan Shawhughes	(18 June 2008 - present) 1 child
Uma Thurman	(1 May 1998 - 20 July 2004) (divorced) 2 children

Trivia

Attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School in central New Jersey, but is not pictured in the yearbook (1984-86).

Children with Uma Thurman: daughter Maya Ray Thurman-Hawke (born July 8, 1998) and son Levon Roan Thurman-Hawke (born January 15, 2002). [8 July 1998]

Graduated from the Hun School of Princeton. [1988]

Published his first novel, "The Hottest State," in 1996 (the novel sold for $400,000 to Little, Brown and Company).

Was in a production of "Great Expectations" at West Windsor Plainsboro High School.

Was accepted by Carnegie-Mellon University, School of Drama in Pittsburgh, PA, but dropped out after only 5 months.

Proposed to ex-wife Uma Thurman twice before she said yes.

Childhood friend of director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects (1995), X-Men (2000)).

His cat appeared in the Lisa Loeb music-video "Stay", which he directed.

Has appeared in two film adaptations of William Wharton novels: Dad (1989) and A Midnight Clear (1992).

He was the original choice to play FBI Agent Will Graham in Red Dragon (2002), but turned the role down to take time off from making movies.

His parents were University of Texas students when Ethan was born, and they separated when he was three.

Says that he is constantly mistaken for Mark McGrath from the band Sugar Ray so often that he signs autographs as "Mark McGrath" and, apparently, the same thing happens to Mark McGrath who, in turn, signs autographs as "Ethan Hawke" to fans.

Met and became friends with River Phoenix during the making of Explorers (1985).

When he was in the seventh grade, he played "Lon" in West Windsor-Plainsboro junior high school production of the play "Meet Me in St. Louis".

Remains close friends with Dead Poets Society (1989) co-stars, Robert Sean Leonard and Josh Charles.

Attended the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, New York for one year.

First cousin twice removed of Tennessee Williams. Hawke's great grandfather and Williams' father were brothers.

Is close friends with actor/director Frank Whaley, whom he met while filming A Midnight Clear (1992).

On Father's Day 2004 he went to a Yankees game with his kids.

Is a big fan of the Star Wars movie series

His mother Leslie is a charity worker who lives in Romania.

Co-founded the now-defunct theater company called "Malaparte" with Robert Sean Leonard, Frank Whaleyand Steve Zahn.

Very good friends with Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Stepbrother Patrick Powers is a Green Beret who served a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, and is currently (late 2006/early 2007) serving a six-month tour in Iraq.

Turned down the part of Bobby Mercer in Four Brothers (2005). He loved the script but could not commit to it because of scheduling conflicts. The part eventually went to Mark Wahlberg.

His first acting role was at McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey at age 12.

His mother is a strict vegetarian and animal rights activist.

Is a big fan of the band Wilco.

Reds (1981) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) are his favorite movies.

To prepare for his role in the film version of Hamlet he spent the summer before filming attending three study sessions a week with a friend who had played the part on the stage.

Took a year off acting after Training Day (2001) to complete his novel Ash Wednesday.

Twice during his 20s he took a two-year leave of absence, once to go to NYU and study English (he dropped out when a part came up), and then to write a novel.

In Before Sunset (2004) (which he co-wrote with Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater), Hawke's character Jesse is in a failing marriage with a woman he married because she had become pregnant. Soon after the film's release, Hawke divorced his real-life wife Uma Thurman, whom he had married while she was pregnant with their first child.

Announced that he and his girlfriend, Ryan Shawhughes, are expecting a child together (January 31, 2008). Ryan used to be the nanny of his children by his ex-wife, Uma Thurman.

He was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in March 2004 in Austin, Texas.

Ethan and his wife, Ryan, became the parents of a girl, Clementine Jane Hawkes, on July 18, 2008 in New York City.

Lives in New York City.

A fan of Guns N Roses.

Was considered for the role of Dignam in The Departed (2006).

Personal Quotes

I think most people are good at more things than the world gives them the opportunity to do.

"The kindest compliments I have ever heard are when cops tell me Training Day (2001) and Assault on Precinct 13 (2005) inspired them to become cops. The funniest compliments I have ever heard are when people tell me that 'I love your band Sugar Ray'".

But the truth is, I've never wanted to be a movie star - and I've been pretty clear about that.

People look at your life and see things as a big deal that aren't a big deal to you. What I mean is, the chapter breaks are different for me. I'll read about my divorce, and what people think about it, and, well, it's so inaccurate, usually, but the fact is, I wouldn't want it to be accurate. Because it's my truth. When I was younger, it was more important to me to come off well. Now, I just want to try to be good at what I do.

The devil is seductive, and so guns are glorious in the culture. I understand there's a case to be made. For instance, Spike Lee said something like this, that you can't have a scene with drugs in a film that doesn't secretly make you want to do drugs. In the same vein, it's hard to make a movie that's anti-violence because the very nature of photographing violence eroticises it. But I'm not so sold that that's true.

Actors write movies all the time - but you try fiction and you're an asshole. Everyone wants to try new things, or almost everyone. Really great supporting actors want to play the lead, and lead actors secretly wish they could be character actors. Brad Pitt doesn't want to be pretty! You know what I mean? Everybody in the world wants to look like Brad Pitt, and Brad Pitt wants to look like a regular guy.

A lot of these movies, they're really enjoyable to see. Really, it's like smoking crack or something--you walk out and you feel diminished by it. It's eye candy, just violence and sex. Definitely lots of sex, people making out or showing their tits, which is always fun, but it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life. I tried it - I tried doing this Angelina Jolie movie [Taking Lives (2004)], a popcorn movie, the first movie I did that's about nothing. And I didn't like it, because I do ultimately feel there's enough crap like this. It's so much more fun and harder and more challenging to try to make something that's entertaining but isn't wasting your time.

One of the things that's great about Training Day (2001) is that you have two very distinct personalities, but it's true: it also has a great plot. If you can do both, it's incredibly exciting for the audience. Oftentimes, you have art films that have no narrative to speak of and instead offer characterization; then you have mainstream movies that are simple formulas, A-B-C-D. Training Day (2001) is a good combo.

(On being a father) "It's the greatest pleasure in my life. It's the only role that, if I fail, I will consider my life a failure."

A lot of American actors when they do Shakespeare put on a phoney English accent and it drives me crazy. You're always fighting against the idea that only the British know how to do Shakespeare.

After Reality Bites (1994) came out, I had opportunities to be a different kind of actor, and rightly or wrongly, I grew up in a household where there was such anger and resentment towards anyone who had any money, that I never really had any desire to make any money. And I had the idea that a real artist wouldn't have any money. That's been problematic.

Acting was something that came very easily to me. It fell in my lap. But the people I admired the most were not really movie stars. I was full of Jack London and Jack Kerouac.

(On working with Jude Law) I think Jude's the real thing. He is just electric, man. He is so beautiful. It's weird to be around someone that beautiful. I just couldn't believe he was straight.

I was friends with River Phoenix, you know, and I used to be painfully jealous of him, until a friend pointed out that him doing well doesn't mean that you're doing badly. And if he does badly, it doesn't mean you're doing better. It's like that great Gore Vidal line, 'Whenever a friend of mine succeeds, a small part of me dies'. Being an adult is really challenging. When you're young, you can rely for so long on being promising, and then you have to stop being promising. You want to say, 'Hey, can't I be promising any more?'.

(On Dead Poets Society (1989)) The experience on that movie was, for lack of a better term, life-altering. Peter Weir has a unique talent for making movies that are intelligent but also mainstream. I've never been terribly successful at doing that.

One of the things I learned on Training Day (2001) was it can be fun to work inside a genre. And I've also always felt that if you wanted to keep working, that if you're not a real chameleon of an actor and if you're not one of those guys who can really shape-change themselves all the time, one of the ways to keep pushing yourself and keep changing is to be in different kinds of movies. And this one had a good part, and often these kinds of movies don't even allow you to even try to give a nuanced performance.

The person who's had the most impact on acting since Marlon Brando, the only person who's really changed acting, is Julia Roberts. I call it the Julia Roberts School of Acting. It's an excess of competence. She's got all these imitators, and they just basically get on screen and smile. The idea is, smile and say your line. And Julia Roberts herself - well, that's one thing. But she has a ton of pupils who get on screen and basically just smile. And their smile is so winning, and so wonderful, that you say, 'I like that person'. And it drives me crazy, because the point of performance is not to be liked. My grandfather's a politician, and he can never understand. He says, 'You've got to stop playing these people no one would ever like!' But my job is not to be liked. It's to make interesting things. I want to actually do something, rather than just be me on screen. Julia Roberts does something with it, but all her imitators. It's like the imitators of Raymond Carver, that generation of writers copying him, I guess: it looks simple to them and they copy it, but they're missing the thing that made it special.

(On writing his novel, The Hottest State) "Writing the book had to do with dropping out of college, and with being an actor. I didn't want my whole life to go by and not do anything but recite lines. I wanted to try making something else. It was definitely the scariest thing I ever did. And a huge learning experience about how not everybody's going to like you, or like what you do. And you have to ask yourself, is it worthwhile? Or am I just doing it to be liked? And it was just one of the best things I ever did. The second book was so much more fun because of that. The first was just a novelty act, like, 'The kid from Reality Bites wrote a book? Who does he think he is?' And I understand that."

I had a huge depression when my marriage split up. But Before Sunset (2004) and Hurlyburly (1998) ended up being these giant vents for me, to let it blow through. No matter how screwed up I was, I was never as screwed up as "Eddy" in Hurlyburly (1998), the woman-hater.

Salary

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)	$3,000,000
Training Day (2001)	$12,000,000

Where Are They Now

(May 2005) Starring in the acclaimed, Off-Broadway revival of David Rabe's "Hurlyburly". The production also stars Bobby Cannavale, Parker Posey, Elizabeth Berkley, Wallace Shawn, and Josh Hamilton.

(2002) Release of his book, "Ash Wednesday: A Novel".

(1996) Release of his novel, "The Hottest State".

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