Ethan Hawke’s 10 best films performances
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Credit: Nicolas Genin
Ethan Hawke’s favourite books of all time
There are many reasons to love Ethan Hawke, and as far as Hollywood celebrities go, he ranks right at the very top of the list of actors we’d like to visit a pub with. He broke onto the scene in the 1989 classic Dead Poets Society, and over the course of the ’90s established himself as one of Generation X’s most captivating talents. He’s not just an actor either. Hawke has directed films and Broadway plays as well as penning novels and screenplays. A true artiste, Hawke is of a dying breed, another reason why he’s so coveted.
After starring in the iconic Dead Poets Society, Hawke became a pop culture legend when he starred in the 1994 comedy-drama, Reality Bites, alongside Winona Ryder and Ben Stiller. Then, a year later, he confirmed his broody, heartthrob status when he starred in the first of Richard Linklater‘s Before trilogy, Before Sunrise, opposite Julie Delpy. The pair were perfectly cast in this postmodern drama and continued to dazzle in its successors, Before Sunset and Before Midnight.
Other notable titles in Hawke’s filmography include Gattaca, Training Day and the cult crime flick Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. He also starred in Linklater’s groundbreaking film, Boyhood, which was shot over the course of 12 years and became an instant classic.
Given that Hawke has constantly shown himself to be so cerebral, and the fact that he’s penned screenplays and novels, it won’t surprise you to find out that he’s an avid reader. He advocates reading so much, that, in 2001, he co-founded the Young Lions Fiction Award an annual prize for fiction writers under the age of 35.
Luckily for us, during a 2016 interview with The Week, Hawke went into detail about his six favourite books. It’s a varied list, but it provides a brilliant insight into the complex mind of one of modern cinema’s true greats.
The first novel he chose was Three Day Road by Canadian novelist Joseph Boyden. The 2005 novel follows two young Cree men who volunteer for the First World War and become snipers. Hawke said: “Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack, the protagonists of Joseph Boyden’s 2005 novel, are two Cree men who served as snipers in the Canadian army during World War I. I read the book in one sitting — literally could not put it down. It is a punch to the gut — an absolutely brilliant novel, not for the faint of heart.”
The next entry is Collected Essex County by celebrated comic book writer, Jeff Lemire. Hawke explained: “This is my favourite graphic novel. The Essex County stories, which follow three generations of a farming family in Ontario, helped me understand that the possibilities of the graphic novel reach beyond anything I had ever imagined. Simple, human, touching, and funny.”
Unsurprisingly, the third title Hawke picked was The Good Lord Bird, which he would go on to adapt for TV and star in, back in late 2020. A first-person masterpiece, written by James McBride, the plot follows a fictional former slave who links up with legendary abolitionist John Brown.
Hawke said: “In McBride’s National Book Award-winning novel, John Brown’s plot to raid Harper’s Ferry unfolds through the eyes of a young ex-slave who dresses himself as a girl to escape detection. Travelling ‘incog-negro,’ as he puts it, Henry Shackleford journeys with the militant abolitionist across the country. If you ask me, Mark Twain can kiss McBride’s butt.”
The other three titles Ethan Hawke picked were Patti Smith‘s memoir Just Kids, Once They Moved Like the Wind by David Roberts, and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. A marvellous list, showing Hawke’s brain to be rather sponge-like, every title he picked is a must-read.
Ethan Hawke’s six favourite books:
- 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
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