As some of you might remember, I have a thing for Ethan Hawke. I’m hot for him, even though his prettiest days are long gone. If anything, I’m more attracted to him now that he looks a bit grizzled and hard-living. It’s not just how he looks though – I appreciate Ethan Hawke so much for how he speaks, and the interviews he gives. He likes to talk, but unlike so many actors, there’s not a pretense of “oh I can only talk about my process.” Ethan likes to gossip, and he likes to reflect back on his career, the good and the bad, and he loves to talk about other actors and directors. Ethan has a lengthy new interview in the current issue of GQ, and this was just a wonderful read. He talks a lot about ageing, his middle class sensibilities, how Generation X is awesome and so much more. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

On his Gen-X hipster cred: “The past is never the past. I remember when Reality Bites came out, how nervous and apprehensive I was anytime anyone said the expression “Gen X.” I was so worried that it was going to be a label that I would be stuck with. And now I look at it with such affection. I have a certain pride about being part of a generational movement.

Whether he was ever like his “slacker” characters: “When I did Dead Poets Society, people thought I was a prep-school kid and I got offered other prep-school parts. And then for years, Jesse from Before Sunrise and Troy from Reality Bites were what people thought of when I would meet them. But then Training Day comes out, and the perception around me takes on a new energy. And then Boyhood comes out, and all of a sudden you’re everybody’s f–king dad. But I did also go on a date once, and we were getting along pretty well, but the young woman kept accidentally calling me Troy. And I had to say, “My name is Ethan.”

Fame within his generation: “What I liked about it was that I was famous with my own generation, but old people didn’t give a sh-t about who I was… I remember watching Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson at the Academy Awards the year they presented Best Picture. And I remember one of my friends just screaming, “Get off the stage, you old clowns! Your time’s over!” I mean, their work is staggering. But that was an energy we had of wanting to contribute, wanting a turn, wanting an at-bat.

When the ‘90s ended for him: “In my brain, it happened with becoming a father. All I was interested in was this little girl, you know? And she was born in ’98.”

Having to do the audition rounds in LA at the age of 30: “Yeah. I had to go audition [for ‘Training Day’] a couple times. That was when I knew the ’90s were over. I was in a unique position, which is that I was only 30 years old, and I was washed up. All my friends were going to audition for Saving Private Ryan. And I couldn’t even get an audition for it, because they knew me and didn’t want me. It’s like, There’s no need for me to audition, because we know him. No, not him. And people were reading scenes from A Midnight Clear, which was a movie I had done and apparently Spielberg loved, but he didn’t want me to audition. All these other guys were getting out of theater school, like the Ben Afflecks of the world, the Matt Damons of the world. All those guys were finding their voice and coming into their own. And you are on the lunch box from back then and have no place on the new lunch boxes, you know?

His life fell apart when he divorced Uma Thurman: “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. How phony celebrity was, how phony everything is. You channel your inner Holden Caulfield, you know?

Art versus money: “My best movies are not the ones that paid me: the Before trilogy, Boyhood, First Reformed, Dead Poets Society. But I’m 47 years old. I pay my alimony with my acting. I pay my kids’ health insurance with my acting. I pay everybody’s tuition with my acting. I’m helping various charities with my acting. I’ve become a professional, and I never wanted to be a professional. I kind of hate professionals. And so when I get left alone in a room for a second and I get to be creative again, I’m like, Okay, Ethan, you get to make a movie.

[From GQ]

There are a million more interesting quotes and I had to cull the hell out of these answers, because once you get him going, he will talk your ear off about anything and everything. There’s a vein of neurosis there, but it’s out in the open, like you can tell that even though River Phoenix has been gone for decades, Ethan is still jealous of his friend’s work and early success, even if he thinks River’s life was a cautionary tale. He still thinks about how much it sucks that he didn’t get the scripts Matt Damon got. And yes, he totally wants to win an Oscar, even if he says he has mixed feelings about it. Imagine his Oscar campaign – it will be full of these kinds of amazing interviews for months.

Photos courtesy of Fanny Latour-Lambert exclusively for GQ (sent from promotional GQ email) and WENN.