The movie that made Ethan Hawke fall in love with cinema
American actor Ethan Hawke started his career when he was just 14, landing a starring role in the fantasy film Explorers alongside River Phoenix, also making his screen debut. The film wasn’t a success, but it kickstarted the careers of two incredible actors. While Phoenix went on to star in Stand By Me, Hawke found his breakthrough with Dead Poet’s Society.
Following the success of Dead Poet’s Society, Hawke decided to dedicate himself to acting. He explained: “I didn’t want to be an actor and I went back to college. But then the [film’s] success was so monumental that I was getting offers to be in such interesting movies and be in such interesting places, and it seemed silly to pursue anything else.”
The ’90s saw Hawke receive particular acclaim for his performance in Reality Bites alongside Winona Ryder, but it was his role in 1995’s Before Sunrise that really highlighted Hawke’s talents. He starred as Jesse, an American who embarks on a spontaneous trip around Vienna with a stranger he meets on the train, played by Julie Delpy. Their chemistry is incredibly natural, with Delpy stating that the pair contributed a lot of their own ideas to the dialogue.
Since the success of Before Sunrise, Hawke has starred in its subsequent sequels, Before Sunset and Before Midnight, as well as appearing in movies such as Training Day, Sinister, The Purge, and more recently, The Black Phone.
Having acted in such a diverse list of films, never confining himself to one genre, Hawke has demonstrated an intense love for cinema. Discussing his favourite movies, he cites movies such as Taxi Driver and Dazed and Confused as those he loves most. However, there’s one movie that helped him fall in love with the medium – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Directed by Miloš Forman, the movie stars Jack Nicholson as a convict who pretends to be insane in order to live in a mental hospital rather than be subjected to hard labour. Forman took home the ‘Best Director’ Oscar for the movie, while Nicholson won ‘Best Actor’. For Hawke, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a film he frequently finds himself returning to.
He told Rotten Tomatoes: “It’s actually the first film I ever saw. I don’t remember it, but I was a little baby and my mom took me. It’s one of those movies I’ll watch whenever I’m feeling lost or alone in the universe. Something about McMurphy and the Chief throwing the sink through the window makes life worth living.”
Hawke added: “Part of it has to do with the level of supporting acting. He creates a full world. Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito and Louise Fletcher and Brad Dourif — it’s just such an incredible cast. The world feels so real. That’s what so many epic movies get wrong. They feel important in the way that it’s in italics. They just feel like they’re about the director, and not about the characters.”
Revisit the trailer below.
