Ethan Hawke on “Blue Moon,” and taking nothing for granted

Nearly a hundred years ago, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart helped put the “great” in the Great American Songbook, with songs like “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and “Blue Moon.” 

But by the early 1940s, Hart’s heavy drinking made him an unreliable partner. So, Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II, and their first production, the landmark musical “Oklahoma!” opened at the St. James Theatre on March 31, 1943.

It was an immediate hit, and that night there was a big party a few doors down at Sardi’s, that legendary Broadway watering hole, with its walls hung with the caricatures of famous faces. Lorenz Hart showed up at Sardi’s that night, and what happened next is now a movie.

In “Blue Moon,” Ethan Hawke is Hart, drowning his sorrows at the bar. 

For the film, they re-created Sardi’s on a soundstage, but “Sunday Morning” met Hawke at the real thing.

“I was definitely the type of young person that would walk in and think, ‘When am I gonna get my painting up there?'” he said. “I’m not above that. I’m a little heartbroken that I don’t have one up yet!”

Perhaps his time will come. “My time’s coming,” he said. “I have hope. I’m not done yet!”

And this performance is proof: the real Lorenz Hart was less than five feet tall, so director and frequent Hawke collaborator Richard Linklater used camera tricks to make the nearly six-foot actor look short. Hawke also shaved the top of his head to make a real combover, and he learned a mountain of dialogue.  

“It’s definitely the most text I’ve ever had in a movie,” Hawke said. “I remember calling my wife after the first day – I think I had more lines than I had in the previous five films.”

It was a challenge for an actor whose face usually says it all. In the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society,” Hawke played a student, and he says he learned a lot from co-star Robin Williams. “There’s a scene where he’s talking about how to grade poetry, and he has all the kids rip it out – I didn’t realize how much I was being taught, and how that sustained me through negative criticism. It’s like, there’s not any rules about being a great actor. Drop dead. So you don’t like it? Suck an egg. You don’t know what great acting is any more than I do.”

I asked, “When you’re in a movie like that so young, does it set you up? Or does it set you up?”

“It’s a great question, ’cause it’s possibly both,” he replied. “If you let it be the high-water mark of your life, it will be, you know, if you put too much on that. You don’t want anything at 18 to be the high-water mark of your life.”

Between movies, Hawke made his Broadway debut with, he says, a lot more confidence than skill. “That’s the weird thing about being young. I had no business being confident at anything. I was a total moron. And I walked in here like I was, you know, John Barrymore.”

His performance in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” (1992) was described as “promising.” But it was clear that his best work was ahead of him.

Hawke got the first of four Oscar nominations for his role in the 2001 film “Training Day” opposite Denzel Washington. His performance still resonates. Hawke said, “When my son was about six, Levon, he said to me, ‘Dad, what’s “Training Day?”‘ I said, ‘Oh, it’s the movie I did a few years ago. Why?’ He said, “’cause every time we walk down the street, when people pass you, they say, “Training Day”!'”

But after “Training Day,” there was a time when Hawke says he passed on more parts than he took – and the offers started drying up. “When you’re young, you think it’s everybody. You don’t realize that This is a young person’s game, and those kinds of job offers, there’s a shelf life on that.”

“When did your shelf life, when did that hit?” I asked.

“Around the same time gray starts appearing in your beard,” he replied.

The gray in the beard works for him now, as a hard-nosed investigative reporter in the critically-acclaimed FX series “The Lowdown.” In the series, you never know what’s around the next corner – just as in real life. As we were wrapping up at Sardi’s, owner Max Klimavicius suddenly showed up with a surprise for Hawke: “Ethan, I would like your permission to make you part of our collection,” he said.

He was a bit stunned, and to be honest, so were we. But after Ethan Hawke’s career on screen and stage, it wasn’t all that surprising.

“Wow!” he said. “It finally happened. I’ve got my portrait at Sardi’s. I’ve arrived! Things are looking up in this life!”

And now, with his latest film in mind, there’s talk of more accolades to come.

How does he handle the Oscar buzz surrounding “Blue Moon”? Does he tune it out? He said, “There’s the obvious other part of you that goes, like, ‘Hey, I dedicated my life to this job, and this is seen as a barometer.’ And I would be dishonest if I didn’t say that, like, that would be amazing.

“This is so corny, but it just flashed through my head: I was like 11 or something, I said to my mother, ‘What’s gonna happen with my life? What’s gonna happen?’ And she – and I remember it so vividly – in the kitchen, like Doris Day [sings] ‘When I was just a little girl…’ you know, it goes into ‘Que Sera, Sera.’

“You have to have a little ‘Que Sera, Sera.’ I don’t take any of it for granted. That’s, I guess, the right answer. Any little bit of it.”

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Ethan Hawke

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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Ed Givnish.