Last week, Ethan Hawke hyped the hell out of his next movie with Richard Linklater, calling it “among the greatest films ever made.” He now regrets saying that.
“I don’t know why I said that,” he tells THR. “I’m mad at myself. The problem with doing so many interviews is eventually you lose your mind. It’s like a guy who stayed at the party too long. You just talk too much.”
Oh, come on, Ethan! Just stick with what you said — where’s that Chalamet-level bravado? I don’t believe for a second he didn’t mean it. I wish there were more artists who strived for greatness like he did in that quote.
Regardless, in the same interview, Hawke reiterates that the film is definitely happening: “Rick will tell you, I feel this way about every movie we’ve ever done, but I’m very confident about this. Whenever we make it — and I think it will be this year — it’ll be the heaviest lift of our lives, but we’re really ready.”
Even with the backtracking, I do love Hawke’s enthusiasm for the project. We can sense his excitement — the kind of passion that makes you believe, even if he’s trying not to say it outright, that this movie is something special.
The movie does sound larger in scope, or at least in budget, compared to some of the other films he’s done with Linklater. Still untitled, it will tackle the “hippies of the 1830s and ’40s, the beginnings of feminism, environmentalism, abolitionism — all that. Oscar Isaac and Natalie Portman will co-star with Hawke. Production is supposed to start in Boston sometime this year.
Festival press conferences have turned into landmines of political questioning, to the point where some artists would probably prefer to turn down being a juror at Cannes, Venice, or Berlin.