The actor Ethan Hawke has been jealous of since 1989: “I’m never gonna forget him”
Having a competitive side is one of the base requirements of being a professional actor, because you’re never going to end up with the best roles if you aren’t willing to fight hard for them. However, that mindset can regularly tip over into jealousy, with Ethan Hawke harbouring his envy since 1989.
It feels like he’s been around forever, which is because he has, relatively speaking. It’s been over 35 years since he landed his breakout role in Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society, which wasn’t his first feature, an honour that belongs to The Explorers, which was released four years previously, and he hasn’t gone away.
Since then, there have only been four years when he didn’t appear in at least one movie, and considering that he’s starred in at least three films in 17 different years during that time, he’s borderline ubiquitous. Hawke loves to work, and he’s one of those names who occupies an interesting position in the Hollywood hierarchy.
Everybody knows who he is, but he’s not what anyone would call a movie star. He’s one of the staunchest proponents of the ‘one for me, one for them’ mantra, alternating between smaller-scale, intimate, and character-driven fare and terrible genre flicks that nobody ever talks about. He seems happy with his lot, though, even if the green-eyed monster has been hovering over his shoulder for decades.
Dead Poets Society was released when Hawke was only 18 years old, and his potential was clear. However, after making history when he inked a contract with one of the industry’s most prestigious talent representation outfits, he was quickly usurped by an actor four years his junior, who’d recently headlined an Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg movie and lent support in Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winning Henry V.
“I realised the first time I was jealous of Christian Bale, I was 19,” he admitted to The Film Stage. “Because I had been the youngest client at my agency until they signed Christian Bale. There was this huge list. They represented Robert Redford, Paul Newman, blah blah blah, you know, Warren Beatty. And I was really proud to be on it, I was the youngest one.”
When he lost that honour, he made a point of monitoring the progress of the upstart who’d taken it away from him. “And the next year there was this other guy, a younger guy, Christian Bale,” Hawke continued. “Who the hell’s that? And I was like, ‘Aw, shit, I’m never gonna forget him.”
Even though he’s a four-time Oscar nominee who’s been in some great pictures and worked with many of the industry’s best directors, it’s not unfair to suggest that Bale has had a more successful career. After all, he’s an Oscar winner, a two-time Golden Globe winner, and one of the frontrunners to be named the single most talented thespian of their generation. Hawke is good, without a doubt, but he’s not generational.
Not to sound too cruel about it, but all you need to do to understand Hawke’s feelings toward Bale is think about Batman. The latter took top billing in Christopher Nolan’s multi-billion-dollar, acclaimed, and influential Dark Knight trilogy, whereas the former voiced the comic book character in the children’s animated TV series, Batwheels, underlining how his rival has always been at least one step ahead.
