CraveOnline: You described it as a job, and it’s such a high concept that you have to drive this car and can’t leave the car. Is that kind of performance tougher, or simpler in a way because it’s so direct? And you’ve done high concept before like Assault on Precinct 13, Daybreakers and The Purge.
Ethan Hawke: There was a simplicity to this movie that I really liked. One costume, sit down in the car, tell this very simple story. Something like The Purge or Gattaca or even Daybreakers there’s a very complicated plot. You’re setting something in the future. There’s always metaphors at play that have to be balanced and work and weird tone things. This movie starts at 85 miles per hour, jacks up to 100 and gets to 120 and it’s over. It’s pretty straightforward.
Have you ever been on a movie where the stuntmen and stunt drivers were so important before?
Never. Normally, you’d be on a movie and there will be people that are surprisingly important. Sometimes there’s a producer that has a lot of say. Sometimes there’s a director of photography that is very relevant. Even when I did the movie White Fang, the animal trainer was my biggest collaborator. He was the guy I worked with the most.
On this movie, it was all about the stunts. Can we do that? Can we not do that? Is it safe to do that? How does that work? How can we make this crash different than the other crash we just did? If someone enjoys the movie, they really enjoyed a lot of these stunt guys’ work because these guys were really working a lot harder than Selena and I.
Would you go to the set and just watch the car days when it was all stunt driving?
No, I spent my life on film sets. It’s so boring, film sets. When you’re not involved in it, it’s kind of like watching paint dry. I would happily come in to watch them flip a car, but usually what I’d do is just come in later to watch. We were always several units. We’d be shooting one thing and then across town they’d be blowing something up or something that they didn’t need the actors for.
Now that people have seen Before Midnight we can ask a bit of a spoiler question. I found that a lot of people thought Jesse and Celine should have broken up at the end of the movie. It seems like people wanted them to break up. Do you think it was really headed towards a breakup?
Oh, I’ve never gotten one universal feel about what people want. It changes, whoever you talk to. What’s wonderful about those movies, they’re kind of a Rorschach test. You see what you bring with you.
I think also because it’s an art movie it won’t necessarily go to a happy ending like a Hollywood rom-com.
Yeah, right.
Can you tell us anything about the Andrew Niccol film you’re going to do?
I don’t think I can because until we’re all set and everything like that… I think he’s one of the most interesting writers working in the world today anywhere. His ideas are revelatory.
I was a big fan of In Time. I thought that was really underrated.
I think it was an underrated film too. As a friend of his who read the script, if he’d had the proper tools to make the movie he really [wanted]… I mean, I think the movie’s terrific. Lord of War I think is a really underrated movie. I think Nic Cage is amazing in that movie. I think a lot of the ideas at play in that movie are really fascinating. So I’m excited to be working with him again. He always has such a unique vision as to what is happening in our world right now. He sees the world from an angle that a lot of people don’t.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
