With Tim Burton‘s recent disappointing comments on diversity still ringing in our ears, The Playlist attended WNYC‘s event at The Greene Space, where host Rebecca Carroll (author and WNYC’s producer for special projects on race) questioned, and occasionally grilled, guest Ethan Hawke in the inaugural edition of “How I Got Over.” Carroll’s new series aims to spark conversations about reinventing the language that we use around race, the implicit bias towards it, and how deeply ingrained it is in the American culture.
READ MORE: The ‘Selma’ Oscar Snubs: What It Means About Race And Gender In Hollywood
The event began with Carroll citing the famous Toni Morrison quote from her Nobel Prize speech, “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives,” offering context for the evening around the how words and how language matters.
Consistently thoughtful, Hawke admitted he felt an unlikely candidate for the discussion and that he didn’t have all the answers. In fact, some answers he gave were a little naive, specifically when asked how he personally communicated with his children about racism and the murder of unarmed black men by police. He responded, in earnest, “I think all families in America are having conversations with their kids about what is going on. I don’t think you can avoid it.”
Hawke is part of the ensemble cast of the Antoine Fuqua‘s reboot of the 1960 Western “The Magnificent Seven.” Playing Goodnight Robicheaux, a former Confederate soldier, Hawke is part of the seven band of mercenaries hired by a small town to save it from industrialists. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”), Hawke and Denzel Washington are together again, along with Chris Pratt, Byung-hun Lee and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as fellow gun-slinging cowboys. Whether or not you think the film holds up to the original, Fuqua’s diverse casting and choice of Denzel Washington as Sam Chisholm, the duly sworn warrant-officer lead, creates a tension and “vibration” that changes the stakes. Hawke praised the magic of Denzel Washington’s acting and the gruesome reality of the Civil War: “No one really survived that war who fought in it.”
Hawke spoke openly about how his preparation for “Training Day,” included “ride-arounds” with police who didn’t see the need to stop and frisk white people, because as the officers said then, “they weren’t scary.”
In the telling of an amusing anecdote about the time Roger Ebert toasted him as “the most successful actor in Hollywood who hasn’t killed someone on screen,” Hawke gulped down the thought that “he must not have seen my newest movie [‘Training Day’].” Guns and violence were discussed in-depth and how a “professional actor”— a phrase Hawke seems to abhor — reconciles using guns and being violent in film. Believing in common-sense gun laws and policy, Hawke believes that violence in film should not be policed or censored since violence is a realistic part of life. However, he took the time to praise Richard Linklater, a director he has worked with often throughout the years (the ‘Before’ Trilogy and the award-winning “Boyhood,” among others), for his fascination and love of “ordinary life.”
READ MORE: Ranked: The Best Characters In Richard Linklater’s Movies
In the ’90s, after reading the script for “Geronimo: An American Legend,” Hawke was surprised that the film starred a host of leading white men, and also included a smaller part for Geronimo, played then by Wes Studi. Having completed and co-authored a new graphic novel with Greg Ruth, “Indeh: A Story of the Apache Wars,” Hawke discussed his fascination with the Apache Wars, and answered the big question as to why he felt he should write it. Approaching the work and the telling in an almost “scientific” context, Hawke simply wanted to tell the story of Geronimo and Apache Leader Cochise because “they are a part of the fabric of American History and those stories need to be told.”
The evening closed with Carroll’s rapid fire take on the Proustian Questionnaire, which hit many high notes including a discussion how Hawke was inspired by singer/activist/actor Paul Robeson.
“How I Got Over” looks like a discussion series we’ll want to keep an eye on, particularly as the conversation around diversity in the industry continues to evolve. Watch the full talk with Ethan Hawke below.
