Ethan Hawke “ Movies, Books And Rock ‘n' Roll Are My Church Of Choice”

With inumerable quality acting, screenwriting and directing credits as well as several published novels to his name, Ethan Hawke is a true cultural polymath. Here, he talks to James Mottram about the things that set his soul on fire and why its so hard to make a living doing what you love.

- James Mottram

In a converted building in London’s Holborn, Ethan Hawke is sitting at a keyboard playing a sweet, simple version of The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset.” No, the actor-director-novelist is not making a late career switch to pop stardom. It’s all in aid of his new film, Juliet, Naked, in which he plays Tucker Crowe, a cult rocker from the Nineties who disappeared, mid-gig, never to return.

Dressed in denim jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, Hawke quietly growls his way through the tender lyrics of a love song he suggested for the scene. As so often with Hawke, there’s an emotional connection. “My son [Levon] is falling in love with the guitar,” he explains, when we sit down together. “We always loved that song. I put that on a playlist when they were kids. So it was one of the first songs he wanted to learn on the guitar.”

Taking it upon himself to further his kids’ musical knowledge, Hawke has two children—Maya, 20, and Levon, 16—by his first wife, actress Uma Thurman, whom he met on the set of 1997 movie, Gattaca. They divorced in 2005 and three years later Hawke re-married Ryan Shawhughes, who later gave birth to two daughters, Clementine, 10, and Indiana, 7.

When Maya turned 13, Hawke presented her with The Black Album, an unofficial compilation of songs (complete with extensive notes, written by Hawke) released by The Beatles’ members following the band’s break-up. This became interwoven into Boyhood, the Oscar-nominated film Hawke shot over 12 years for his friend Richard Linklater. “All that stuff came from conversations we had,” he says.