The scruffy guy in the faded Charley Crockett concert T-shirt who walks into a crowded Brooklyn cafe on a sunny Tuesday afternoon would never be mistaken for a fresh-faced prep student throwing a desk set off a roof. No one would think this regular patron, the one greeting the place’s owner with a bro hug, moonlights as, say, an L.A. cop who’s just been coaxed into smoking angel dust, or a priest stuck in an existential crisis, or a five-foot-tall Broadway legend drinking himself to death. Given the facial hair, he could probably pass for a 19th-century abolitionist if need be. As for the embodiment of Generation X slackitude? That dude left the building ages ago.
But like most actors people have spent decades with, the ones we’ve watched grow up onscreen and go from ingenues to genuine artists, Ethan Hawke brings his past with him when he enters a room. And over the next two hours and several strong cups of coffee, the 54-year-old will flash glimpses of all of those aforementioned guys as he breaks down nine of his movie and TV roles plus one onstage turn (“an important one, and not just because it’s Shakespeare,” he says). A tilt of his head, and suddenly, Jesse from Before Sunrise is holding court. He pitches his voice down into a throaty rasp, and you feel like you’re talking to songwriter Lorenz Hart. Hawke has the ability to go from outer-borough everydad to old-fashioned movie star in a split second. “I’ve been really lucky,” he admits, “that I got to be mentored and nurtured, and realized early on what it feels like not to see acting as a competition, but as part of the collective imagination. And that’s where the magic lives.” {read}