Ethan Hawke reveals early rivalry with Billy Crudup: “So irritating”
Ethan Hawke has opened up about his early rivalry with Billy Crudup in light of their present closeness.
Speaking on The Tonight Show, Hawke brought up his long-time friend while noticing his image hung on the wall: “You know what’s kind of funny is right behind me, you’ve got Billy Crudup, who happens to be a friend of mine,” he shared with host Jimmy Fallon.
Looking back at their early relationship, he mused, “You know when you’re a kid, you think you’re against everybody, right? You don’t understand that there’s room for everybody to find themselves and do their thing.”
As such, the actor admitted that he would “see him at every audition”.
He added, “I’d often have to be outside the room and listen to him do the scene before me. And he was so good! It was so irritating!”
Hawke then got down to specifics: “In fact, I was offered a play once — I think he knows this — and I had to say no to it because I was doing a movie. It was a Tom Stoppard play. And they gave him the part and then his career took off.”
The 55-year-old teased the Almost Famous star, “Sometimes I just want to go back in time and take the part to stop his career.”
On a more serious note, Hake recently commented on the political climate in the US. “There’s a kind of fear in the air that I’ve never felt before, and it’s not America,” he said while speaking at the Sundance Film Festival.
He added earnestly, “To get to be an artist in a free country, I’ve had enough of an education to know what a privilege that is. And I don’t feel that way anymore. And that’s something that has to change.”
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