Three full decades have now passed since Ethan Hawke first caught the public eye as a fresh-faced kid in Explorers and a quarter-century since Dead Poets Society (where he hopped on the desk to recite “O Captain! My Captain!”) locked him into what would become his public persona as an artistic young man eager to show off his brains. Long before James Franco became a Renaissance Man, Hawke was publishing novels, directing Off Broadway plays, directing films, starring in movies, appearing on-stage—he was unexpectedly terrific as Bakunin in Tom Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia—and, of course, featuring in the tabloids for his marriage to Uma Thurman. Perhaps because I watched him grow up and find his artistic bearings, I always found it easy to think him a tad pretentious.
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