Ethan Hawke has revealed that he thought of his latest collaboration with director Richard Linklater as a different version of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles event, Hawke said: “The day they’re breaking up, only one of them’s going to start a band that’s five times bigger than the Beatles, and the other one’s going to be dead.”
The Sony Pictures Classics film, the ninth project Hawke and Linklater have made together, is set on the opening night of the 1943 musical Oklahoma! The story centres on the relationship between lyricist Lorenz “Larry” Hart (Hawke) and his former partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), as Rodgers begins a new partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney).
Linklater described Hawke’s transformation into Hart as a “deductive process”. He explained: “Usually you’re building something. This was taking away everything. Because Larry Hart, all he is, is his wit, his brain. I just saw him as an open wound.” Hawke added that Hart was “the smallest person in pretty much any room, and also the biggest person”, and that his constant need to be smart and funny was a driving force.
Hawke credited Linklater with knowing all his tics and pointing them out to help Hawke disappear and the lyricist come forward. The actor compared the process to building a cabinet without using the five common tools. The film, which also stars Margaret Qualley and Bobby Cannavale, arrived in cinemas on October 24.
