Ethan Hawke Once Suspected That ‘Dr. Strange’ Director Wanted to Cast Him Before Benedict Cumberbatch
Marvel ended up casting superstar Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular character in Dr. Strange. But due to his personal connection with the film’s director, Ethan Hawke believed he was once wanted for the popular role.
Ethan Hawke once explained why he felt he was the first pick for ‘Dr. Strange’
There was a point where Hawke was keen on starring in a superhero project. The Training Day star couldn’t help notice how well-crafted the first Iron Man film was. After becoming a fan, he wondered what other veteran actors could do with similar roles. But he also felt committing to these superhero projects was a potential setback.
“So my point is I am totally open to doing something like that, [but] there’s a problem that comes along whenever Marvel’s gonna approach Joaquin [Phoenix] or me or anybody who’s in love with acting, because there’s a tremendous amount of salesmanship that is now really important to a studio like that. It’s a tremendous amount of time of your life where you’re working and you’re not acting,” Hawke once said on the Happy Sad Confused (Via Collider).
Hawke was also rumored to be circling around a Marvel project of his own. There were talks that the actor might have been considered for 2016’s Dr. Strange. Hawke collaborated with the film’s director Scott Derrickson in a previous film, so there was already a connection between the two. Although Hawke didn’t confirm those reports, he believed he was Derrickson’s original pick for the role.
“It’s a bigger burden and so I think studios like Marvel and places like that, they wanna really make sure that somebody’s gonna play ball. If you have a reputation as a pretentious artist type, it doesn’t work in your favor. I would love to work with Scott [Derrickson] and I have a sneaky suspicion that Scott wanted me for that too.”
Ethan Hawke’s daughter inspired him to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Hawke would originally join the MCU in the Disney+ series Moon Knight with Oscar Isaac. His inclusion into the show surprised many because of prior comments the actor made about superhero films.
“Now we have the problem that they tell us Logan is a great movie. Well, it’s a great superhero movie. It still involves people in tights with metal coming out of their hands. It’s not Bresson. It’s not Bergman. But they talk about it like it is. I went to see Logan cause everyone was like, ‘This is a great movie’ and I was like, ‘Really? No, this is a fine superhero movie,’” Hawke once told Film Stage.
His daughter, actor Maya Hawke, got wind of her father’s comments. It was Maya Hawke’s words that convinced the Dead Poets Society actor to give the MCU a shot.
“Maya would say to me, ‘Why are you sitting on the outside and telling everyone their sandbox is bad? Why don’t you go into their sandbox, play with them, and show them what you have to offer?’ I said to Oscar Isaac, ‘We’ve got to go play in Marvel’s sandbox and try to do what we do. We don’t have to change Marvel,’” Hawke recalled to IndieWire. “’We just want to show them what we’re capable of doing and see if they find it interesting.’ So we had a lot of rehearsals and worked on things a lot. We had a really good experience.”
Ethan Hawke called Marvel an actor-friendly studio
Hawke had nothing but kind words in regards to his time with Marvel. Although he didn’t feel the studio was very accommodating to directors, he thought actors had the opposite experience.
“That group of people is extremely actor-friendly. They might not be director-friendly, and that could be what Scorsese and Coppola are talking about. But they love actors. I think Kevin Feige had a great thing happen with Robert Downey Jr. and he understood that Downey’s passion was a large part of the success,” Hawke said.
