It has been nearly 30 years since Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” premiered at Sundance and introduced us to the infectiously intoxicating and devastating chemistry between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Followed by the even more emotionally overwhelming “Before Sunset,” Linklater’s three-part romance saga concluded in 2013 with “Before Midnight.”
On Thursday, April 11, Dior, the Cinema Society, and Oscilloscope Laboratories hosted the New York City premiere of “Wildcat,” which Hawke directed, at the Angelika and Bar Tulix. To celebrate the upcoming 30-year anniversary of “Before Sunrise,” we asked him if he would return to the “Before” trilogy if Richard Linklater ever approached him with a script.
“Definitely,” Hawke said of making a fourth installment. “The whole reason those movies worked the way they did is because all three of us were like-minded. It would have to be the three of us all feeling the same impulse.”
Returning as a director for “Wildcat,” his imaginative take on a Flannery O’Connor biopic, Hawke cast his own daughter, Maya Hawke, as the lead in an unconventional and alluring narrative structure. Having worked with quite the mix of directors over his near 40-year career, Hawke was vocal about his appreciation to not only work, but learn with some of the greatest directors of all time.
“Well, the wonderful thing about acting is you get to work with other directors,” Hawke told IndieWire. All those people you mentioned, Richard Linklater, Pedro Almodóvar, Paul Schrader, they have never been on anybody else’s set really. I mean, they might visit it, but they didn’t work on it. [As actors], we get the experience of working with all kinds of directors. If you’re at all interested in directing, there’s mentorship that happens effortlessly, so I’ve stolen from all of them.”
Last year, Hawke admitted that he “didn’t even know” if audiences would care about his trilogy of “Before” films. “I didn’t even know if they would come out,” Hawke said. “One part of my brain thought, ‘Oh, people are going to love this.’ And another part of me thought, ‘Nobody’s going to be interested in this.’ I didn’t care. I knew that I was interested in it, and I can hear that voice.”
“Wildcat” opens in theaters on May 3. Ethan Hawke will be traveling around the country to attend select screenings — find tickets in a city near you here.
