Ethan Hawke covers the new issue of Haute Living because he’s promoting his new film, Maudie. It’s the true story of Maud Lewis – played by Sally Hawkins – “an arthritic Nova Scotia woman who became one of the most beloved folk artists in Canadian history.” Hawke plays Maud’s husband Everett, who didn’t marry Maud for love but ended up completely enamoured with his wife. It sounds like a good bio-pic and God knows, I have a not-so-secret love for Ethan Hawke. He looks really good in this magazine editorial too! Damn. Anyway, in the interview, Ethan talks at length about the movie and why he did it. He also talks about politics and more. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

He’s not interested in TV work. “I always find the goal of great cinema is to entertain you and leave you with something, and leave you better than when you walked in. A lot of TV does feel like I wasted some time. I get offered TV and I want to know how it’s going to end and then they say, ‘We’ll see if it’s successful.’ It doesn’t have an end—it doesn’t have a middle for f–k’s sake—and my brain doesn’t work that way.”

On the Trump presidency: “Trump sucks! The only positive to having a complete carnival barker as a president is seeing how energized young people are for the first time. Because I have an 18-year-old now, I’m getting to see all these 18-year-olds who grew up for their whole conscious lives with Obama as President, so they have this idea that everybody cares about the environment, equal rights—this Benetton view of the universe. They didn’t have any sense that there was something worth fighting for. But I think, if we can manage to minimize the damage that happens in the coming months and years, if we can survive it, I think you’ll see a totally energized generation of young people who will know that all actions have reactions. That’s my one takeaway.”

He’s disappointed that Christians haven’t abandoned Trump: “If they withdrew their support, it would be very meaningful. I was raised a Christian, baptized and confirmed. It was a huge part of my childhood, good Christian ethics, Sunday school, the golden rule—‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ I think that Trump has done a good job of playing people and using them. ‘Oh, you’re against abortion? I’ll do that for you.’ They become one-issue voters. They don’t see that this person doesn’t represent their belief systems at all.”

Trump is all smoke & mirrors: “They see those gold letters, but what they don’t realize is that it’s all tin. Those letters aren’t really gold. He’s this old-fashioned money lender weirdo who needs to be thrown out of the temple, you know?”

On Southern women embracing Trump: “The biggest surprise is the power of young women growing up in an extremely misogynistic society that feels familiar and good. They recognize it. They don’t want to ask more of their leaders. It was refreshing for them to see the men they knew. It was a weird thing.”

He predicted that Trump might win: “I was shooting in Louisiana when the whole ‘p-ssy grab’ thing happened. It was fascinating to see the indignance in New York [while the] people in the south just thought it was funny. I knew it was a lot more dangerous than other people knew. That ‘p-ssy grab’ thing was a real indicator. I’m like, ‘He isn’t done.’ A lot of the country really didn’t care that he said that.”

[From Haute Living]

This is sort of why I love Ethan – he loves to chat, he loves to talk and talk in interviews, and he often brings some nuanced analysis to subjects you wouldn’t expect. Here’s a man with daughters, a guy who thinks a lot about his own regrets and the society in which he’s bringing up his children. And he thinks of it in terms of “the power of young women growing up in an extremely misogynistic society that feels familiar and good.” That’s very true.

Photos courtesy of Michael Schwartz/Haute Living.