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He directs, his wife Ryan is a producer and his daughter Maya stars. Now the film “Wildcat” was shown at the ZFF in Zurich. And Ethan Hawke once again proved why he stays grounded despite his fame.
By working as a family, they are a kind of “boring indie Kardashians,” Maya Hawke joked in an interview. The motto: Art instead of reality show: “I think she means that people are interested in us because we are a family and somehow famous,” explains Ethan Hawke. «But we are all interested in independent art. And not to sell a product.”
A film as a gift for my daughter
Your idiosyncratic biopic “Wildcat” about the famous US writer Flannery O’Connor is such an indie film. Flannery had been Maya Hawke’s idol since she was in school – she really wanted to make a film about the southerner. She identified with her search for meaning, her questions about creativity and spirituality.
Flannery O’Connor
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The famous Southern writer Flannery O’Connor wrote two novels and numerous short stories in the so-called “Southern Gothic style”. She was an ardent Catholic: faith, morals, hypocrisy and the grotesque drove her around.
Born in 1925 in Savannah, Georgia into an Irish Catholic family, Flannery O’Connor initially studied English and sociology. But at the age of 24 she became seriously ill with lupus. From then on she struggled with physical ailments, raised birds, but never stopped writing. She died in 1964, at just 39 years old.
According to Ethan Hawke, Maya constantly wanted to know from him why men were allowed to play complicated people, while young women were always asked to play nice, sweet and simple characters. “She wanted to play a complex role and I thought she should have that opportunity.”
Nepotism is everywhere
Maya hired her father as director and screenwriter and his second wife Ryan as producer.
Legend: Father Ethan and daughter Maya Hawke together at the premiere of their film “Wildcat” in September 2023 in Toronto. IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
Working together like this is a privilege, they are grateful for the job: “Celebrating Thanksgiving is much more difficult than making a film together,” says the 52-year-old actor with a laugh. Nepotism? This happens in every profession: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maya grew up in the film industry, which creates advantages. The question is what she does with it.”
In big footsteps
Her parents’ footsteps are big. Her mother is the acting icon Uma Thurman (“Pulp Fiction”, “Kill Bill”), to whom Ethan was married in his first marriage. Her father is a multi-talented actor, director and writer and a four-time Oscar nominee.
Did daughter Maya have to become an actress for better or for worse? «No, I didn’t care. I just want Maya to be happy. I want her to follow her dreams and her heart and do her own thing,” says her father: “I knew that she would be artistic since she was very small. That was the only thing she cared about.”
Star family with a down-to-earth attitude
Maya Hawke is doing her thing: At 25, she is already famous and made a name for herself in the successful Netflix series “Stranger Things”. She’s cool, headstrong, refreshing, a teen idol.
If you think you’re the greatest, you’re an asshole.
The whole family achieved stardom. But Ethan puts things into perspective in the master class he holds in Zurich: “If you say that I’ve really made it, that I’m the greatest, then you’re an asshole.”
Legend: Ethan Hawke at the masterclass he held as part of the ZFF 2023 in Zurich. Zurich Film Festival
He proves his modesty in conversation. He makes people feel like they are the most important people to him at the very moment they are talking to him.
When a child in the audience asked him in the master class who he most enjoyed working with and why, Hawke replied: “With you. You’re here even though you don’t have to be here. And by talking together, we work together. You are the person I enjoyed working with the most. Right now, right here.”
The movie “Wildcat”
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Legends: ZFF
The biopic shows the US author Flannery O’Connor how, in the 1950s, she was already suffering from lupus and tried to assert herself in a man’s world with her controversial, often disturbing stories. The film artfully interweaves the author’s life and work by repeatedly jumping from reality to her fantasies. Maya Hawke plays multiple roles, proving her versatility.
The cinema release in Switzerland has not yet been determined.
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2023-10-05 17:01:44
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