Ethan Hawke he is proud of his crooked teeth. When a former agent asked him to fix them, he got angry. “I watched the Oscars on TV a few years ago and everyone looked like they were human without a single flaw. They looked so fake. And then crazy Sean Penn came on stage and I thought, “Here’s a man.”». That day he decided he wasn’t going to get his teeth done. “I just hate how “homogenized” they want us all to be. No one ever talks about Eleanor Roosevelt’s crooked teeth because she was a woman of substance».

In Cannes, among models and Instagram stars with huge followings and little film credits and impossibly white teeth, Hawke looked like a normal person. Or as normal as one can be as an icon of his generation with four Oscar nominations and a career spanning four decades.

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Now, at 52, Hawke co-stars in “Strange Way of Life”the director’s western film Pedro Almodóvar, which just premiered at Cannes. Unlike Pedro Pascal, his “Strange Way of Life” co-star, who the world discovered in his 40s, Hawke grew up in front of the camera. When he was born, his father was 18 and his mother was 17. They named him Ethan because his mother thought the name would look nice on a book cover.

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Hawke’s parents divorced when he was four, and he went to live with his mother, who raised him between odd jobs and intense social activity: she was a teacher, joined the Peace Corps, and founded a charity that helps provide education for children from Romania. Hawke was, and remains, involved in this work and is committed to minority rights.

He credits his parents’ divorce as his first acting lesson. To please his father, a deeply religious conservative, he talked about football and religion. “I wanted him to like me. I was aware that I was “playing” for him. I hated myself for it“, he declared to the “New Yorker”.

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When Hawke was 12, his mother enrolled him in acting classes. Six months later he starred in the movie “Explorers” alongside River Phoenix. They became inseparable during filming. “We were sure we were going to be movie stars.” On the day of the premiere, they hid in the bathroom of the Ziegfeld Theater to listen to the reviews. They were not flattering. “America voted and Ethan Hawke is not a star,” an executive was heard saying.

Hawke’s first movie experience didn’t make him an instant star, but it did indirectly teach him a lesson he would have preferred not to learn. He confessed to the Guardian that his distaste for big Hollywood movies stemmed from the death of Phoenix. “He was the brightest light and this industry got him and that was a big lesson for me».

His next audition was for Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society. The success and influence of the film exceeded all expectations. As he has recounted several times, hardly a day goes by without someone shouting “Carpe diem!” (Seize the day).

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Such a critical and commercial success, with nearly $250 million at the box office, should have made its protagonists instant stars. However, this was not to be… As the actor was trying to find his place in the industry, he received a phone call from Winona Ryder, who was in Portugal filming ‘House of the Spirits’. He wanted to work with her in the movie ‘Reality Bites’ (1993). Film is a phenomenon that is difficult to explain. When it was released, it was panned by critics and the few viewers who saw it hated it. Of course, over time this changed…

The film was a flop at the time, but he met Thurman through it. They were together for seven years and had two children. Of his relationship with Thurman, Hawk told ICON in 2016: “I was looking for a home, security, a foundation, a family through marriage. I was looking for the opposite of what my life was, always exposed to sparkles, but I fell in love with someone who only added more “sparkles” to my life. Our marriage turned out to be the opposite of what I wanted it to be. I know there are people who can manage it, but for me it was impossible“, he said.

To overcome his divorce, Hawke worked hard. He believed that if he gave the media a lot to talk about his professional life, they would not deal with his personal life. In 2008 he married Ryan Shawhughes, who had briefly worked as a nanny for his children. Hawke and Shawhughes now have two daughters together.

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His career has gone through many difficult moments. Hawke had to audition twice before landing his role in the movie ‘Training Day’. “That’s when I knew the 90s were over. I was in a unique position, that is, I was only 30 years old and I had passed. All my friends were auditioning and I couldn’t even audition because they didn’t want me».

Today, the actor is not afraid to take risks that go beyond traditional film roles. He participated in long-term projects such as the trilogy “Before Sunrise” (1995-2013), which tells the story of a couple, and in “Boyhood” (2014). In both projects, he collaborated with Richard Linklater. Now, Hawk looks around and sees that the industry has changed. “The most obvious example is that when I was younger, the ultimate mark of mediocrity was having a fashion contract, having to sell jeans or cologne. Today everything is a commodity that can be bought».

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