Austin Way Magazine - GreenGale Publishing - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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TwenTy years ago, Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater and Austin- born actor Ethan Hawke launched what would become one of the most successful ongoing collabo- rations in independent cinema with the talkative and intimate Before Sunrise. The two friends have made many movies together, including the Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight trilogy and the locally shot The Newton Boys. Their eighth and most ambitious film, Boyhood, a lovingly realis- tic portrait of a family shot over a dozen years, is one of the most talked-about movies of the year. An ambitious and novel project, yes, but one full of intelligent and thoughtful observations as well as the comfortable acceptance of life's imperfections. Those characteristics also shape how the two men interact. They instinctively follow each other's thoughts no matter where they lead, never losing the other. When the two longtime friends launch into a conversation, you can imagine sitting with them on a back porch in Austin—Linklater with a Texas drawl that takes its time, Hawke with his pas- sionate staccato—discussing life and the creative process well into the hot night. Here, after the release of Boyhood—shot in Austin, Houston, and other parts of Texas—Linklater talks to Hawke about working with Austinites Ellar Coltrane (who stars as Mason Jr.) and Charlie Sexton (the legendary local guitarist who basically plays himself ), the reaction to the movie, and what's next for Hawke. RichaRd LinkLateR: i want to ask you about the way we spent 12 years on this life project really contemplating fatherhood. this film is called Boyhood, but it could have been called Motherhood or Fatherhood. We are both fathers. i feel like this collaboration was unique, catching us at a certain point in our lives. how do you feel about it? ethan haWke: I think that's been the strength. My son, Levon, was born right before we started shooting, so this spanned his whole life. He doesn't remember any time when I wasn't working on Boyhood. Maya feels the same way; she was 5 when we started filming. You were always a little ahead of me with your daughter Lorelei. So that was really fun for you and me to talk about our experiences as fathers. And what's really hard about the movie coming out is the level at which people judge my character, Mason Sr., and I see how we all want perfection from our parents. But none of us had perfect parents, and none of us are perfect parents ourselves. Once you break up the nuclear family, perfection is no longer possible. You're trying to make something positive out of the broken pieces, right? 108 AUSTINWAY.com