Ethan Hawke's presidential endorsement couldn't be more direct. “Kamala Harris drives the bus I want to get on.”
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter Rome during the Lucca Film Festival, the actor and director says that his mother gave him some particularly insightful advice regarding this election season: “I was talking to my mother about the next elections, and she told me: 'Voting is like taking public transport public. It doesn't exactly leave you at home, but it brings you closer. Then take the train, or the bus, and it takes you close to home.' There is no doubt in my mind: I want to be on the bus that Kamala drives.”
While in Lucca, Hawke started his day by running along the city's ancient walls and cycling through the historic streets. In addition to the lifetime achievement award he will receive at the festival, Hawke is in Lucca to screen his latest directorial work, Wild catstarring his daughter Maya. The film tells the story of American writer Flannery O'Connor, who spent her life battling lupus, the disease that ultimately disabled her and led to her death in 1964.
“I was incredibly moved that someone as young as Maya wanted to take on such a challenging project, a film about a writer who almost never leaves her room. The story of a character whose life is centered around writing and feeding chickens,” Hawke said. “But Maya has been passionate about Flannery O'Connor's writing since she was a child. She called me and her mother [Uma Thurman]asking us to work with her to bring this film to life. I'm proud that he chose us.”
The film intertwines O'Connor's life and visualizations of his disturbing and hallucinating stories, populated with grotesque, cruel and disfigured characters. Hawke compared them to a certain political figure: “If you heard a story about a real estate developer running for president selling Bibles to pay off a porn star, you'd think he was a character out of one of Flannery O'Connor's films. . stories, not someone real!”
Born in Texas in 1970 and distantly related to playwright Tennessee Williams, Hawke achieved international fame as a teenager in Peter Weir's 1989 drama. Society of Dead Poets. “From Weir I learned to accept all challenges and love them,” Hawke shared.
Hawke collaborated frequently with director Richard Linklater, who guided him through the Before dawn, Before sunset AND Before midnight trilogy, shot over the years together with Julie Delpy, and the coming-of-age epic Childhooda film shot over 12 years. Over the course of his varied career, Hawke – who is also a screenwriter, producer, novelist and musician – has earned four Oscar nominations.
Hawke's next film as an actor reunites him with Linklater. “We fired Blue Moonwhich details the final days of lyricist Lorenz Hart, one half of the iconic songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart. The script is the best I've ever read. If we did it justice, it would be a fantastic film. It takes place over 90 minutes in real time, capturing Hart's life.
Hart led a troubled life, marked by alcoholism and depression. The film is set during the premiere of Oklahoma!the first musical Rodgers created without him, as Hart spiraled deeper into despair. The cast includes Margaret Qualley, Andrew Scott and Bobby Cannavale.
“Hart was a funny, irreverent, deeply complex and heartbroken man,” Hawke noted. “He had a sense of humor that always had death lurking behind him. A bittersweet character, steeped in melancholy.”