Throughout his 37-year career, Ethan Hawke has done it all.
With an ability to choose interesting and unexpected roles, Hawke has played the character range of the romantic protagonist of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, Paul Schrader’s Tortured Priest. First reformed to a cowboy condemned to the Magnificent Seven remake.
He has even appeared in animated form, with a rotoscopic cameo Awake Life.
But Hawke has yet to tackle a challenge like his latest role, as a masked serial killer in The black phonea creepy horror thriller that brings him together with his Sinister director, Scott Derrickson.
Set in Colorado in the 1970s, the story takes place in a besieged city facing a wave of abducted children. When teen Finney becomes the last victim of The Grabber, she has to fight to get out of an enclosed basement. The last thing you expect is for the phone disconnected from the wall to start ringing.
Hawke’s performance as The Grabber is threatening, creepy and vulnerable, and it’s a feat to convey all those aspects when the actor doesn’t have the use of his face, hidden behind a series of increasingly creepy masks. . You can never see Hawke’s famous face, and you only recognize his voice.
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It’s the kind of film and the kind of acting that will stick to cultural awareness, a cinematic bogeyman to chase our nightmares. And to think, Hawke didn’t want to play the role.
He sat down with news.com.au to talk about what made him change his mind, the challenges of playing a masked demon and wanting to work with his daughter Maya.
Scott Derrickson told me last year that you had initially turned him down, but then he sent you the script and you left a voice message for him in the character of The Grabber. What did you see in the script that made you change your mind?
I was really looking forward to working with Scott again after Sinister, so I was happy when he approached me with the script. But then he told me about it and that he would play the role of someone who kidnaps and kills children. And I said, “Scott, I don’t want to play this guy.”
He said, “You’ll read it,” and I said, “Yeah, I’ll read it, but I just want to warn you that this is the kind of character I don’t care about.”
I read it and the movie is very different from what I think people think it is. Because it’s scary and it has that great ghost story element and a serial killer element. But deep down, it’s really about how kids grow up.
It’s an adult story about growing up and learning to survive by taking care of yourself. The story of brother and sister also moved me so much that I wanted to help him make the film.
So your decision ended up being more about the other roles than about The Grabber?
Yes. Part of the joy of [playing a supporting character] is helping to facilitate the hero’s journey.
I knew he was a new character to me and that exactly the reason I didn’t want to play him is the reason people would think I wouldn’t play him. And maybe it would be an exciting change of pace for me: to put myself in a situation to do something I had never done before.
The element of the mask was really exciting and weird, and I was eager to take on a challenge. I did a little mask work at theater school while studying Greek theater. It all comes down to voice and body language. I thought it might be a unique challenge.
It seemed to me, “I guess this is where the universe wants me to go.”
The masks seemed to me like the commedia dell’arte, and you get to work with different parts of the masks: sometimes the top of the face is exposed, sometimes it’s the bottom and sometimes there is none. . What was it like working with them when they are different every time?
What you realize is that the character I play is doing a performance himself. He has a fake name, wears these masks and plays hide and seek with his victim and reveals aspects of himself at different times.
This began to dictate the performance. It was surprisingly fun once I got into it, because the masks were very interesting and changed all the behavior I imagined I would do.
Scott said he was channeling his childhood experiences when he wrote The black phone. Did you bring any of your experiences to the paper or was it based on someone you knew??
I hope not! For me, when you tell a story of fear, you are trying to evoke the language of dreams and delve into the psyche of people in what they are most afraid of. And one of the things we’re most afraid of is being powerless or someone taking advantage of the weak, especially the young, that scares us.
And this somewhat primitive mask looks like an old devil figure. You’re not playing an old-school sense of this character, it’s more of an embodiment of fear. You have to go in search of dreams.
I know some parents have abandoned some screenings because they couldn’t stand the children who were putting themselves in danger.
We all have things that we are really afraid of that we can’t even think about. What I love about the film is that it’s about children who survive and learn that they can act for themselves, a brother and a sister who take care of each other.
Many children feel powerless and feel that adults do not have their best wishes in their hearts. In many ways, The Grabber represents the older generation attacking a younger generation, whether parents or teachers who do not protect children in school. They don’t feel wise and this is a story where they learn to take care of themselves.
That’s why I think parents should follow suit. Kids are stronger than you think.
How do you feel about being a figure in people’s nightmares?
If you live long enough in the life of an actor, you have different stages and you can be the young wit, you can be the figure of people’s imaginative romance, you can be the joke, you can be the action hero and you have Sometimes you too of being the devil.
Is this the stage you are in right now?
Sure it seems.
Arthur Harrow comes on to the pitch Knight of the Moon it was also terrifying.
It was terrifying! But in The Northman, I became a benevolent king. So the Lord gives and the Lord draws.
I loved it The Good Lord Bird. What else are you working on this is yours?
The Good Lord Bird is one of my favorite things I’ve ever done.
I’m trying to develop a couple of projects. I look forward to acting with my daughter, Maya. So we are developing some things together.
I’m always working on a handful of different things. I’m finishing a movie with Julia Roberts right now, so it should be fun.
The black phone is already in theaters