'Blue Moon' pushed Ethan Hawke to his limit: 'That's a thrilling spot to be in'

"Hawke was only 13 when he made his first film, Explorers. He became a star at 18 with Dead Poets Society. More than 30 years later, he's still acting, except now when he gets a script he forgets he's no longer a young guy. "I'll be sent a script and it says, 'Billy, age 19, skateboarding down the street,' and I think, 'Oh that's my part,'" Hawke says. "It takes me a while to realize, 'Oh, Billy's father, age 55, gruff and weathered around the edges. ... Oh, that's me.""

"Hawke says his new film Blue Moon is one of the most challenging of his career. In it, he plays lyricist Lorenz Hart, the original songwriting partner of composer Richard Rodgers. The film captures Hart on the night that Oklahoma!, Rodgers' musical with his new songwriting partner Oscar Hammerstein, debuts. Hart was afraid of being left behind and was a bundle of contradictions, simultaneously proud of his former partner and jealous of his success."

""I felt I was being asked to play two things at the same time, which is of course why I wanna do it," Hawke says. "Every now and then you bump up against a part that presses you to the wall of your ability and you know you can never be as good as the part is demanding of you and that's a kind of thrilling spot to be in.""

Ethan Hawke is obsessed with time and believes acting forces an acute awareness of time, often seeing Father Time as central in collaborations with Richard Linklater. He began acting at 13 in Explorers and rose to prominence at 18 with Dead Poets Society, and he continues to work more than thirty years later. Hawke sometimes envisions younger characters before recognizing he now fits older roles. In Blue Moon he portrays lyricist Lorenz Hart on the night Oklahoma! debuts, conveying Hart's pride, jealousy, fear of being left behind, and conflicting emotions. Hawke seeks roles that press his abilities and finds that thrilling.

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