Ethan Hawke’s Divorce With Uma Thurman Helped Inspire ‘Before Sunset’
Actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman went through a somewhat tumultuous divorce that emotionally impacted the both of them. But it also may have affected Hawke’s work, as he might have channeled his heartbreak into his Before Sunset performance.
How Ethan Hawke’s divorce from Uma Thurman affected his ‘Before Sunset’ performance
Hawke holds his Before films very closely. Directed by Richard Linklater, the three movies have focused on the fleeting relationship between Hawke and his co-star Julie Delpy. The first film in the trilogy, Before Sunrise, saw Hawke and Delpy’s characters meeting each other. It was a project that meant emotionally more to Hawke than some of his other films.
“Dead Poets Society was all about how brilliant [director] Peter Weir was – anyone could’ve played my part,” Hawke once told New York. “But being in Before Sunrise was the closest thing I ever came to being in a band. Both of these movies are really personal. There’s not a goddamn thing Rick, Julie, and I don’t know about each other.”
The second movie, Before Sunset, would follow Hawke and Delpy’s characters reuniting years later. At this point in their lives, the two were both in unfulfilling relationships with little to no direction. The circumstances surrounding Hawke’s character somewhat mirrored the actor’s. Hawke’s real-life relationship with ex-wife Uma Thurman came to an end, which both confided was particularly devastating for both of them.
Linklater believed that Hawke might have tapped into his feelings regarding the divorce into his craft. According to Irish Examiner, Linklater revealed that Hawke wanted to “blur the line between performer and character.”
The director admitted that the similarities between Hawke and his character even became scary while filming.
“Current events had caught up with us. To Ethan’s credit, I think it informed the making of the film. It definitely informed some of his feelings,” Linklater said.
Ethan Hawke focused on work to get over divorce
Hawke admitted that his world came crashing down on him in the midst of his divorce from Thurman. He felt his career was on a bit of an upswing after being cast in Training Day. But losing his wife might have derailed its momentum.
“It was the best moment of my career. Like, maybe, maybe, you could be commercially viable,” he once told GQ. “But I got divorced and my personal life fell apart. I don’t know if you feel this way, but when you’re depressed, it’s really easy to see everything that is fake about other people and life, and I just started seeing all that.”
The actor believed that the best remedy for his divorce was more work.
“In the years after my divorce, I doubled down on the life of an actor. I did Hurly Burly, I did The Coast of Utopia, I did The Bridge Project and took Chekhov and Shakespeare around the world for a year,” he told IndieWire.
Working also might have helped with the media’s interests in his relationship with Thurman.
“If you’re worried everybody has superficial interests, then you have to give them something substantive to talk about,” he said.
Why Ethan Hawke has a hard time watching himself in ‘Before Sunrise’
A lot happened to Hawke since he starred in Before Sunrise. He’d experienced many ups and downs in his career, felt the joys of marriage and the challenges of divorce. He’d also become a parent. His life in his older years was vastly different than his life back in his 20s. This made re-watching himself in the first Before movie a bit of a chore.
“I can’t look at Before Sunrise now without remembering, so vividly, that time period. Who I was then is so different from who I am now; it’s difficult for me to watch it and exorcise it from my actual life,” Hawke said in an interview with US Time Today.
