NATIVE FIRST GRACED THE BIG SCREEN, KICKING OFF A PROLIFIC AND DIVERSE CAREER THAT SPANS ACTING, DIRECTING, AND WRITING (IN ADDITION TO SCREENPLAY CREDITS, HE’S ALSO A BEST-SELLING NOVELIST). THIS FALL, THE FOUR-TIME ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE PROVES HIS VERSATILITY ACROSS GENRES ONCE AGAIN WITH TWO WILDLY DIFFERENT STARRING ROLES: HE RETURNS AS THE SADISTIC SERIAL KILLER THE GRABBER IN THE UPCOMING HORROR SEQUEL BLACK PHONE 2, AND AS A BOOKSTORE OWNER WHO MOONLIGHTS AS A CITIZEN JOURNALIST IN FX/ HULU’S TV DRAMA THE LOWDOWN BY WILL HARRIS PORTRAIT

BY JAY L. CLENDENIN/LOS ANGELES TIMES

Unreliable sources are saying that journalism is dead, but don’t you believe it: not only is journalism thriving, but there are two new TV series that are actively spotlighting the power of the press: Peacock’s The Paper and FX/ Hulu’s The Lowdown. The former, of course, is the semi-spinoff of NBC’s long-running sitcom The Office, but the latter is a drama, starring as the accompanying photo may have indicated Ethan Hawke.

AUSTIN, TX – MARCH 14: Actor Ethan Hawke from ‘The Last Movie Stars’ is photographed for Los Angeles Times on March 14, 2022 at SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. PUBLISHED IMAGE. CREDIT MUST READ: Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times via Contour RA. (Photo by Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times via Contour RA by Getty Images)

Hawke has been a working actor since the age of 14, which is when he convinced his mother to let him attend a casting call for the 1985 Joe Dante film Explorers. The film also served as the debut of River Phoenix, so it’s clear that Dante’s casting director had an eye for talent, and it went on to eventually become a cult favorite, but at the time of its release, Explorers didn’t do so great at the box office.

“That was very hard to wrap your brain around as a kid because I loved Joe Dante, and he was a great mentor to me, and I felt like I’d let him down,” recalled Hawke in a career-retrospective interview for SAG AFTRA. “I had all these dreams where they were reshooting the movie with River Phoenix and Jason Presson and another kid. That was a recurring dream I had for a couple of years after Explorers came out. So by the time the experience of Dead Poets Society happened (in 1989), I had really steeled myself that, even though I knew we were having an amazing time and I felt we were doing something good, I’d had that feeling before, and the world had not responded positively to it. So I was braced to be punched.”

Thankfully, no punches were coming: not only was Dead Poets Society a critical and commercial success, but unlike Explorers it really set Hawke on a path to Hollywood success…or at least regular work, anyway. Later in 1989, he starred in Dad with Ted Danson and Jack Lemmon, after which came a 1991 adaptation of Jack London’s White Fang and eight months later the dark comedy Mystery Date,

A few years later, however, Hawke began to secure roles that would really start to define him as an actor. In 1994, he starred alongside Winona Ryder in the Generation X dramedy Reality Bites, directed by Ben Stiller, and in 1995 he teamed up with Julie Delpy for Before Sunrise, a film that would spawn one of the more unlikely movie trilogies in recent memory.

“Troy, my character [in Reality Bites], was appealing because of his inability to like himself,” Hawke told The Guardian. “There’s a lot of young people who are smart, with tremendous insight into the phoniness around them, but they’re unable to be forgiving of themselves. It was strange afterwards: I was constantly meeting people who thought I was full of myself. They thought I was Troy, and they really didn’t like him.”

In another Guardian piece, Hawke also addressed the importance of Before Sunrise and its two sequels (Before Sunset and Before Midnight) in his career.

“There’s something about the trilogy that feels finished to me,” he said. “Every time we make one of them, the stakes get higher. We wouldn’t want to pour any water in our beer.

P0TM87 Original Film Title: TRAINING DAY. English Title: TRAINING DAY. Film Director: ANTOINE FUQUA. Year: 2001. Stars: ETHAN HAWKE; DENZEL WASHINGTON. Credit: WARNER BROS. PICTURES / Album

Which isn’t to say we couldn’t revisit Jesse and Céline; we muse on it sometimes. A fourth f ilm would have to work in some way that broke the rhythm of this cycle, maybe to address mortality. But these three films have been a blessing in my life.”

Hawke has never stopped being a working actor, not at any point throughout the ‘90s nor into the 2000s, but in 2001 he did step behind the camera to direct his first feature film, Chelsea Walls, which he followed in 2006 with his second directorial effort, The Hottest State, which he also wrote. Most recently he found himself actually directing his daughter, Maya, in the Flannery O’Connor biopic Wildcat, which he also wrote and produced.

“I was turning 50 and she was turning 23, Stranger Things had come out, and she was really getting interested in producing her own work,” Hawke told The Filmstage. “She found something hypnotic about Miss O’Connor. There’s something so incongruous about the way she looks, you know? This fragile young woman in crutches and glasses and this ferocious mind. I think Maya the actor in her was drawn to: ‘Who is this person?’ And because I’m an actor, I take that instinct really seriously. And I thought I could write a movie about Flannery O’Connor. We could do this. That would be a movie I haven’t seen before.”

For all of the diversity in his film work, Hawke hasn’t ventured onto the small screen very frequently. The first time he ever even took on a TV gig was to do a guest spot on an episode of J. J. Abrams’ Alias in 2003. In recent years, however, he’s been venturing more into this medium, including the 2020 miniseries The Good Lord Bird, the 2022 Marvel series Moon Knight, and, most recently, The Lowdown, on which he also serves as an executive producer.

“I can sit here and piss and moan about how independent cinema is dying,” Hawke told GQ. “Or I can realize that the independent spirit can exist anywhere.”

Lee Raybon, Hawke’s character in The Lowdown, is a citizen journalist his day job is owner of a rare bookstore in Tulsa and he’s a self-described “truthstorian,” a mindset which finds him at odds with the rich and powerful as well as the occasional neo-Nazi.

“One of the most interesting conversations of our time is the internet’s impact on journal ism,” Hawke observed in an interview with EW. “Not just the nature of publishing, but how information is received and valued by the public. In the series, Lee’s battle to get people to care let alone even see his writing – is definitely an uphill one. He’s a crusader for the freedom of speech, and more importantly, its relationship to making sure there are guard rails against deceit and lies and greed.”

D1JWBE Before Sunrise Before Sunrise Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke Jesse (Ethan Hawke) und Celine (Julie Delpy) verlieben sich

Impressively, Hawke took The Lowdown without even having read the script, which is why he also signed on to be an executive producer. “In my whole career, I’ve never accepted a role I hadn’t read,” he said. “So if I was going to do that with something of this scope, I didn’t want to be an ‘employee.’ I wanted to share responsibility and be in the kitchen.”