As a director and actor duo, and occasionally as writing partners, Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke have worked on eight different films together – including one full trilogy and one project that shot over the course of 12 years. Clearly they’re very tight, and the good news is that their collaborations are far from over. In fact, we recently learned that the two men are currently working as a team on three different developing features.
I had the pleasure of chatting on the phone with Ethan Hawke late last month, as he was promoting his new film Born To Be Blue, and having recently also spoken with Richard Linklater, I was inspired to ask the actor if he was working with the writer/director on anything. Hawke confirmed that a trio of projects are currently in various stages of development, with one potentially coming together later this year. Said Hawke,
You know, we’re always working on something. I think we have three different things we’re talking about right now. I’m not sure which one is going to pop into the chamber first, but there’s a script we co-wrote together, there’s a script by the guy who wrote Me & Orson [Welles] that the two of us want to do, and then there’s another kind of more mysterious, further down the line project we’ve been working on. Any one of them, both of us are trying to get one of them made this year, for sure, so hopefully it will happen.
Along with Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater co-wrote both Before Sunset and Before Midnight (earning them two Academy Award nominations in the process), but the project described as being more "further down the line" is the one that intrigues me the most. After all, one of the actor and director collaborations was Boyhood - a film that could at one point been called a "further down the line" project that also stands as one of the most ambitious movies ever made.
Sadly, Ethan Hawke didn’t want to go into more detail about the projects simply because he has a phobia that relates to the idea that you shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch:
You know, I just, I’ve become superstitious that when I talk about things before I do them then I don’t. We’re trying to raise the money for a new movie right now and hopefully it will come together.
For now you can currently see Ethan Hawke in Born To Be Blue online and in limited theaters, and you can look out for the duo of westerns In A Valley Of Violence and The Magnificent Seven later this year.
