Background

Ethnicity: Ethan Hawke has English, Scottish, and Scots-Irish/Northern Irish ancestry.

Ethan Hawke was born on November 6, 1970, in Austin, Texas, the United States, to Leslie, a charity worker, and James Hawke, an insurance actuary. Hawke's mother was only 17 and his father only 18 when he was born. His parents separated in 1974 and he was raised in New York by his mother. His mother remarried when he was 10 and they moved to New Jersey.

Education

Hawke went to the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights and later studied at the West Windsor Plainsboro High School in West Windsor Township, New Jersey. After making his stage debut at age 13 in a school production of Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, he went on to appear in many school productions. He graduated from the Hun School of Princeton, New Jersey in 1988.

He undertook acting classes at the McCarter Theatre on Princeton campus while studying at Hun. He also pursued a course in acting at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He enrolled at the New York University twice to study English but his acting commitments made him drop it on both occasions.

Career

At age 15, Hawke made his film debut in Explorers (1985), playing a teenager who builds a spaceship. He appeared in it, with fellow fledgling actor River Phoenix and they became very close friends. The film’s commercial failure disappointed him. In 1988 he enrolled in Carnegie Mellon University to study drama but dropped out after a few months to take a role as a prep school student in Dead Poets Society (1989). The film, which also starred Robin Williams as a charismatic English teacher, was a critical success.

Hawke subsequently worked regularly, and by age 25 he had starred in 15 motion pictures, including White Fang (1991), an adaptation of Jack London’s novel; Alive (1993), a drama based on the true story of an Uruguayan rugby team’s fight for survival after its plane crashes in the Andes Mountains. In 1993 Hawke wrote, directed, and edited a short film, Straight to One, which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. His role as the scruffy, philosophical slacker who pines for Winona Ryder in Reality Bites (1994), directed by Ben Stiller and also featuring Janeane Garofalo and Steven Zahn, made Hawke a heartthrob for Generation X. He expanded his moody romantic-lead portfolio in Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise (1995), co-starring Julie Delpy.

Meanwhile, Hawke remained active with Malaparte, making his theatrical directorial debut with the company's production of Wild Dogs! in 1994. He also appeared on stage in Chicago, playing opposite Gary Sinise in the Steppenwolf production of the Sam Shepard play Buried Child. A newly buff Hawke reappeared on the big screen in the 1997 sci-fi thriller Gattaca, in which he infiltrates a society of genetically perfect humans by assuming another man's identity. His co-stars in the film - Hawke's biggest-budget, the most mainstream effort to that date - including Jude Law and Uma Thurman, with whom Hawke began a romance that led to marriage in May 1998.

In 1998 Hawke co-starred with up-and-coming actress Gwyneth Paltrow in a modern-day remake of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, which received mixed reviews. The same year, he reunited with Linklater for the director's biopic about the famed Texas bank-robbing brothers The Newton Boys, co-starring Matthew McConaughey. In 1999 he played the lead role - a journalist in love with the Japanese wife of a man accused of murder - in the film version of the prize-winning novel Snow Falling on Cedars.

He then starred as the title character in Hamlet (2000), a modern adaptation of the Shakespeare play. In 2001 Hawke made his directorial debut with Chelsea Walls, about the people who live at the infamous Chelsea Hotel in New York City. That year he starred opposite Denzel Washington in the crime drama Training Day, directed by Antoine Fuqua. Hawke’s performance as a police officer new to a corrupt narcotics squad earned him his first Academy Award nomination.

After a long absence, Hawke was back onstage in New York City in 2001, starring in the Manhattan premiere of Sam Shepard's play The Late Henry Moss. In 2002 he appeared in Frank Whaley's The Jimmy Show, screened at Sundance, and made his own feature directorial debut with Chelsea Walls, based on the Dylan Thomas poem Under Milkwood. In 2005, he starred in the Off-Broadway revival of David Rabe's dark comedy Hurlyburly. He played the central character Eddie, which earned him a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor.

From 2006 to 2007, he starred as Mikhail Bakunin in Tom Stoppard's trilogy play The Coast of Utopia at the Lincoln Center Theater in New York. He earned his first Tony Award nomination for his performance. In 2007, he starred alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, and Albert Finney in the crime drama film Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which was directed by Sidney Lumet. Hawke’s performance was lauded by critics.

In 2009, he appeared in two plays: Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, where he played Trofimov, and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, in which he portrayed Autolycus. He earned a Drama Desk Award nomination for the latter. In 2010, he directed his second play A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard. A New York Times review praised Hawke for eliciting a memorable performance.

In 2014 Hawke earned an Oscar nomination for Before Midnight (2013) in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay. He shared the nomination with actress, screenwriter, and co-star Julie Delpy. That same year, he also co-starred in the acclaimed drama Boyhood, earning Oscar, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominations.

He played jazz trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker in the biopic Born to Be Blue (2015). His credits from 2016 included The Magnificent Seven, a remake of 1960 classic western, and Maudie, about Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis. In 2018 Hawke portrayed a middle-aged former rock star in the romantic comedy Juliet, Naked, based on a novel by Nick Hornby, and played an eccentric bank robber in Stockholm, a farce about the 1973 hostage situation that gave rise to the term Stockholm syndrome.

That year he also co-wrote and directed Blaze, a biopic about a little-known folk musician. The film was lauded for its unconventional narrative. Movies from 2019 included The Kid, wherein Hawke played a sheriff on the trail of a notorious outlaw. The following year he starred in Tesla, a biopic about the Serbian American inventor. He next created and starred in the TV miniseries The Good Lord Bird (2020), an adaptation of James McBride’s novel about abolitionist John Brown.

In 1996, during a two-year hiatus from filmmaking, Hawke published his first novel, The Hottest State, which made him the object of some ridicule by the media despite garnering some positive reviews. Hawke withstood the criticism and would go on to publish a second novel, Ash Wednesday, in 2002, as well as Rules for a Knight (2015) and Indah: A Story of the Apache Wars (2016).

Achievements

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  Ethan Hawke’s breakthrough performance came in 1989 when he played a shy student opposite Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. Collecting $235 million worldwide, it remains his most commercially successful film. Hawke shared an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Before Sunset and Before Midnight. He was also nominated for the Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Training Day and Boyhood.
  
  

Works

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• book

  • The Hottest State

    (A debut novel from an acclaimed young actor follows the s...)

    1996
  • Indeh: A Story of the Apache Wars

    (Based on exhaustive research, this graphic novel offers a...)

    2016
  • Ash Wednesday

    (Christy is pregnant with Jimmy’s child, and she’s determi...)

    2002
  • Rules for a Knight

    (A knight, fearing he may not return from battle, writes a...)

    2015

• monument

  • Maudie

    (An arthritic Nova Scotia woman works as a housekeeper whi...)

    2016

• movie

  • Good Kill

    (The film tells the story of a Las Vegas fighter pilot tur...)

    2014
  • Fast Food Nation

    (Based on the controversial best-selling novel, Fast Food ...)

    2006
  • Great Expectations

    (Loosely based on the classic Charles Dickens novel of the...)

    1998
  • Tesla

    (Ethan Hawke stars as the iconic rebel inventor, fighting ...)

    2020
  • Boyhood

    (Filmed over 12 years with the same cast, Richard Linklate...)

    2014
  • The Newton Boys

    (A gang of brothers who treated their life of crime like a...)

    1998
  • Dead Poets Society

    (Academy Award winner Robin Williams (Best Supporting Acto...)

    1989
  • The Purge

    (From the producer of Paranormal Activity and starring Eth...)

    2013
  • Before Midnight

    (Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) first met in...)

    2013
  • Explorers

    (In their makeshift laboratory, three boys use an amazing ...)

    1985
  • Brooklyn's Finest

    (In the course of one chaotic week, the lives of three con...)

    2009
  • Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

    (In the 28th century, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline...)

    2017
  • In a Valley of Violence

    (Ethan Hawke and John Travolta star in this action western...)

    2016
  • Born To Be Blue

    (Ethan Hawke lights up the screen as jazz legend and icon ...)

    2015
  • The Kid

    (A young boy is forced to cross the American Southwest in ...)

    2019
  • Taking Lives

    (Angelina Jolie stars as an FBI profiler called in to help...)

    2004
  • Lord of War

    (Nicolas Cage stars in this taut, action-packed tale of a ...)

    2005
  • The Woman in the Fifth

    (The Woman In The Fifth follows American novelist Tom Rick...)

    2011
  • The Jimmy Show

    (Jimmy O'Brien yearns to escape his working-class roots an...)

    2002
  • Cymbeline

    (Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Dakota Johnson, and Milla Jovovic...)

    2014
  • Waterland

    (A middle-aged high-school history teacher forced into ear...)

    1992
  • Adopt A Highway

    (Just released from a 21-year prison sentence, Russ finds ...)

    2019
  • Gattaca

    (Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman star in this futuristic sci-f...)

    1997
  • Mystery Date

    (A shy guy is set up on a date with a neighbor by his olde...)

    1991
  • Maggie's Plan

    (A young woman (Gerwig) set on having a child, catapults h...)

    2015
  • 24 Hours to Live

    (Ethan Hawke gives an explosive performance as an ex-merce...)

    2018
  • A Midnight Clear

    (In the midst of World War 2 US GIs hold an isolated cabin...)

    1992
  • Getaway

    (Former race car driver Brent Magna (Hawke) is pitted agai...)

    2013
  • Snow Falling on Cedars

    (A murder trial has upset the quiet community of San Piedr...)

    1999
  • The Hottest State

    (A young actor from Texas tries to make it in New York whi...)

    2006
  • Alive

    (In this action-packed hit, a team of tough rugby players ...)

    1993
  • Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

    (Two brothers rip off their parents' jewelry store, but th...)

    2007
  • Daybreakers

    (The year is 2019, and an unknown plague has transformed t...)

    2009
  • Reality Bites

    (A group of friends struggles to find fulfillment in life ...)

    1994
  • Before Sunrise

    (They may have only one night, but when soul mates find ea...)

    1995
  • Stockholm

    (Based on the absurd but true bank heist and hostage crisi...)

    2018
  • Sinister

    (Ethan Hawke is a crime novelist who moves his family into...)

    2012
  • White Fang

    (A classic tale of the friendship between a hunter and a d...)

    1991
  • Before Sunset

    (Nine years ago, two strangers met by chance and parted be...)

    2004
  • Joe the King

    (Fourteen-year-old Joe Henry grew up in a violent househol...)

    1999
  • New York, I Love You

    (In the city that never sleeps, love is always on the mind...)

    2008
  • Assault on Precinct 13

    (Run-down Precinct 13 is about to close its doors forever....)

    2005
  • Training Day

    (Working undercover is a job and an attitude. A mad dog na...)

    2001

Religion

Ethan Hawke grew up in a church-going family. His mother taught Sunday school, his father "is extremely devout," his stepfather "is even more devout," and his great-grandmother wanted him to be a priest.

Politics

Ethan Hawke is a United States Democratic Party supporter. He has supported the presidential campaign of Bill Bradley in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008.

Views

Ethan Hawke identifies himself as a feminist. Hawke is also a gay rights activist. He showcased his support for same-sex marriage in New York along with his wife in a video in March 2011. Hawke supports the Doe Fund, a charitable trust that helps people who are homeless find suitable homes and jobs.

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

Personality

Ethan is a huge fan of the Star Wars movie series.

Interests

• Politicians

  Bill Bradley, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

• Writers

  Rascal by Sterling North, Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, The Collected Essex County by Jeff Lemire, The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, Once They Moved Like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo, and the Apache Wars by David Roberts, Just Kids by Patti Smith, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

• Sport & Clubs

  basketball, tennis

• Music & Bands

  Wilco, Guns N’ Roses, Nina Simone

Connections

Hawke married actress Uma Thurman in 1998. Hawke and Uma Thurman divorced in 2005 following seven years of marriage. The couple has two children, daughter Maya and son Roan. The separation came after rumors that Hawke had an affair with their nanny. In 2008, he married the woman that he had the alleged affair with, Ryan Shawhughes. The couple also has two children, Clementine and Indiana.

Father:

James Hawke

Mother:

Leslie Hawke

ex-wife:

Uma Thurman

Hawke and actress Uma Thurman first met on the set of Gattaca in 1996.

Wife:

Ryan Hawke

Daughter:

Clementine Jane Hawke

Daughter:

Maya Hawke

Daughter:

Indiana Hawke

Son:

Levon Roan Thurman-Hawke

Friend:

River Phoenix

colleague:

Dakota Johnson

colleague:

Selena Gomez

References

• Ethan Hawke on Instagram