Ethan Hawke BIO
Ethan Hawke is a Tony and four-time Academy Award nominated actor and writer whose diverse career as a novelist, actor, director, and screenwriter spans more than three decades. Hawke recently premiered “BLAZE” at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category, a drama he produced, co-wrote and directed about the life of country western musician Blaze Foley. The film received rave reviews and won the Special Jury Award for actor Ben Dickey’s spellbinding performance. Hawke stars alongside Rose Byrne and Chris O’Dowd in the Judd Apatow-produced romantic comedy, “Juliet, Naked,” based on the best-selling Nick Hornby novel of the same name. Directed by Jesse Peretz, the film also premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and will be released by Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate. He also stars in Paul Schrader’s long-awaited and timely political and environmental thriller “First Reformed.” The film premiered at the 2017 Venice International Film Festival before making its way to Telluride and Toronto while garnering Hawke some of the best reviews of his career as an actor. A24 acquired the film and will release it on June 22, 2018.
Hawke’s critically-acclaimed performances and collaboration with friend and filmmaker Richard Linklater in “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” and “Before Midnight” opposite Julie Delpy have become a landmark in American independent film. Hawke, Linklater and Delpy co-wrote the screenplays for "Before Sunset" and “Before Midnight” and received Academy Award and Independent Spirit Award nominations for both scripts. The trio were honored with the Louis XIII Genius Award for achievement in cinematic works for the "Before" films at the BFCA Critics Choice Awards. Hawke has collaborated with Linklater on multiple occasions, including "Fast Food Nation;" "Waking Life;" "The Newton Boys" and "Tape."
Their most recent collaboration, "Boyhood," premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was released by IFC that summer. Hawke starred alongside Patricia Arquette and Ellar Coltrane in the critically acclaimed and groundbreaking film that was shot intermittently over 12 years chronicling the life of a child from age 6-18. For his performance, Ethan received Academy Award, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award, Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, Film Independent Spirit Award, Critics’ Choice Film Award, and Gotham Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
Throughout his career, Hawke has starred in over 50 films including “Reality Bites;” “Good Kill;” “Predestination;” “The Purge;” "Explorers;" "White Fang;" "Gattaca;" "Great Expectations;" "Hamlet;" "What Doesn't Kill You;" "Brooklyn's Finest;" "Sinister;" “Maudie,” “Maggie’s Plan,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Phenom,” “In a Valley of Violence” “Born to Be Blue.” and "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead." Hawke received Academy Award and Screen Actors Guild Supporting Actor nominations for his work in Antoine Fuqua's "Training Day," opposite Denzel Washington. Behind the lens, Hawke made his directorial debut in 2001 with his drama "Chelsea Walls." Additionally, he directed Josh Hamilton in the short film "Straight to One," a story of a couple, young and in love, living in the Chelsea Hotel.
He made his documentary directorial debut with “Seymour: An Introduction,” which premiered at the 2014 Telluride Film Festival and later played internationally at the Toronto International Film Festival. The project follows the life of the legendary pianist and piano teacher Seymour Bernstein.
A noted writer and novelist, Hawke’s graphic novel, Indeh with illustrator Greg Ruth was published by Grand Central Publishing on June 7, 2016. Indeh captures the narrative of two nations at war who strive to find peace and forgiveness in a time of great upheaval. It debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Hardcover Graphic Novels. In 2015, Hawke released his first children’s book Rules for a Knight which features illustrations by his wife, Ryan Hawke. The New York Times best-seller is framed as a long-lost document, recently found and republished by Hawke, a distant relative of the knight, Sir Thomas Lemuel Hawke.
In addition to his work as a novelist, in April 2009, Hawke wrote an in-depth and celebrated profile of icon Kris Kristofferson for Rolling Stone. In 2002, his second novel, Ash Wednesday, was published by Knopf and was chosen for Bloomsbury's contemporary classics series. In 1996, Hawke wrote his first novel, The Hottest State, published by Little Brown and now in its nineteenth printing. In his sophomore directorial endeavor, Hawke adapted for the screen and directed the on-screen version of "The Hottest State" and also directed a music video for the film, featuring Lisa Loeb. At the age of twenty-one, Hawke founded the Malaparte Theater Co., which gave young artists a home to develop their craft for more than five years.
The next year, in 1992, Hawke made his Broadway debut in "The Seagull." Additionally, he has appeared in "Henry IV" alongside Richard Easton on Broadway; "Buried Child" (Steppenwolf); "Hurlyburly," for which he earned a Lucille Lortel Award Nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor and Drama League Award Nomination for Distinguished Performance (The New Group); Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia," for which he was honored with a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play and Drama League Award nomination for Distinguished Performance (Lincoln Center); the inaugural season of The Bridge Project's double billings of "The Cherry Orchard" and "A Winter's Tale," for which Hawke received a Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Old Vic); and "Blood From A Stone" (The New Group) which earned him a 2011 Obie Award for Performance.
In 2007, Hawke made his Off-Broadway directing debut with the world premiere of Jonathan Marc Sherman's dark comedy, "Things We Want". In 2010, Hawke directed Sam Shepard's "A Lie of the Mind," for which he received a Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play as well as recognition in the New York Times and The New Yorker top ten lists of the leading theatre productions in 2010. In 2012, he starred in Chekov's "Ivanov" for the Classic Stage Company. In 2013, he directed and starred in "Clive," a stage adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's "Baal," by Jonathan Marc Sherman (The New Group), and completed a successful run of Lincoln Center Theatre's production of “Macbeth” in the title role. Hawke resides in New York and is married with four children.
Ethan Hawke Movies
Explorers
[ 1985 ] Ben Crandall
Dad
[ 1989 ] Billy
Dead Poets Society
[ 1989 ] Todd Anderson
Mystery Date
[ 1991 ] Tom McHugh
White Fang
[ 1991 ] Jack
Rich in Love
[ 1992 ] Wayne Frobiness
A Midnight Clear
[ 1992 ] Sgt. Will Knott
Waterland
[ 1992 ] Matthew Price
Alive
[ 1993 ] Nando Parrado
Floundering
[ 1994 ] Jimmy
Reality Bites
[ 1994 ] Troy Dyer
Search and Destroy
[ 1995 ] Roger
Before Sunrise
[ 1995 ] Jesse
Gattaca
[ 1997 ] Vincent, Jerome
The Velocity of Gary
[ 1998 ] Nat
Great Expectations
[ 1998 ] Finnegan Bell
The Newton Boys
[ 1998 ] Jess Newton
Joe the King
[ 1999 ] Len Coles
Snow Falling on Cedars
[ 1999 ] Ishmael Chambers
Hamlet
[ 2000 ] Hamlet
Tape
[ 2001 ] Vin
The Jimmy Show
[ 2001 ] Ray
Waking Life
[ 2001 ] Jesse
Training Day
[ 2001 ] Jake
Taking Lives
[ 2004 ] Costa
Before Sunset
[ 2004 ] Jesse
Assault on Precinct 13
[ 2005 ] Sgt. Jake Roenick
Lord of War
[ 2005 ] Jack Valentine
The Hottest State
[ 2006 ] Vince
Fast Food Nation
[ 2006 ] Pete
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
[ 2007 ] Hank
What Doesn't Kill You
[ 2008 ] Paulie McDougan
Brooklyn's Finest
[ 2009 ] Sal
Daybreakers
[ 2009 ] Edward Dalton
Little New York
[ 2009 ] Sully Halverson
The Woman in the Fifth
[ 2011 ] Tom Ricks
Sinister
[ 2012 ] Ellison Oswalt
The Purge
[ 2013 ] James Sandin
Getaway
[ 2013 ] Brent Magna
Before Midnight
[ 2013 ] Jesse
Boyhood
[ 2014 ] Dad
Predestination
[ 2014 ] The Barkeep
Cymbeline
[ 2014 ] Iachimo
Good Kill
[ 2014 ] Major Thom Egan
Born to Be Blue
[ 2015 ] Chet Baker
Regression
[ 2015 ] Bruce Kenner
Ten Thousand Saints
[ 2015 ] Les
Maggie's Plan
[ 2015 ] John
The Magnificent Seven
[ 2016 ] Goodnight Robicheaux
The Phenom
[ 2016 ] Hopper Senior
Maudie
[ 2016 ] Everett Lewis
In a Valley of Violence
[ 2016 ] Paul
First Reformed
[ 2017 ] Rev. Ernst Toller
24 Hours to Live
[ 2017 ] Travis Conrad
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
[ 2017 ] Jolly the Pimp
Juliet, Naked
[ 2018 ] Tucker Crowe
Blaze
[ 2018 ] Radio DJ
Stockholm
[ 2018 ] Lars Nystrom
The Truth
[ 2019 ] Hank
The Kid
[ 2019 ] Sheriff Pat Garrett
Adopt a Highway
[ 2019 ] Russell Millings
Cut Throat City
[ 2020 ] Jackson Symms
Tesla
[ 2020 ] Nikola Tesla
The Black Phone
[ 2021 ] The Grabber
The Guilty
[ 2021 ] SGT. Bill Miller
Zeros and Ones
[ 2021 ] JJ, Justin
Waiting for Godot
[ 2021 ] Vladimir
Raymond & Ray
[ 2022 ] Ray
The Northman
[ 2022 ] King Aurvandil War-Raven
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
[ 2022 ] Efficient Man