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‘Like bike riding’ I T is hard to recognise Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon : he is short, bald, slightly greasy-looking and uncomfortable in his own skin. The role is a far cry from the dashing young leading man who wowed audiences when he broke through decades ago with 1989 coming-of-age drama Dead Poets Society and Gen X classic Reality Bites a few years later. o Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke on magic of Blue Moon

The Wrap. “Rick knew that time was only going to help me. And funnily enough, it’s not just ageing, not just your face cracking and falling apart. I thought I was ready when I was 40, but I wasn’t. “I got more and more interested in what people call character acting. And this part required all of it, everything I’ve learned over 30 some-odd years.” Mysterious Hawke credits his lengthy partnership with Linklater – the pair announced last year they are working on a 10th feature together – for allowing him the space to strip back every vestige of vanity and build himself into this oddball lyricist. Over the course of 100 minutes, Hart reminisces about his souring collaboration with Rodgers, a pairing that gave the world songs such as My Funny Valentine , The Lady is a Tramp and the titular Blue Moon . A not-so-closeted queer person, he also waxes lyrical about his infatuation with a young Yale student, played by a bottle-blonde Margaret Qualley, and shares drinks with Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White. Hart keeps up a steady stream of anecdotes and witty repartee, but increasingly the mask slips underneath it all is the yawning realisation that he is utterly alone. “Nobody ever loved me that much,” he says, echoing Humphrey Bogart’s Rick in Casablanca . Hawke’s Oscar nomination – his fifth after supporting actor nods for Training Day and Boyhood , and two others for best adapted screenplay for Before Midnight and Before Sunset – is the result of an experience on this film he said was mysterious. “I don’t know how I could be so lucky. I really don’t understand how the universe works. “It’s been one of the most thrilling collaborations in my life,” he said of his work with Linklater The Oscars take place on March 15 in Hollywood.

But his portrayal of legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart, an alcoholic who drank himself out of one of America’s most famous songwriting partnerships, is a tour-de-force – one that has landed the 55-year-old an Oscar nomination for best actor. The dialogue-heavy chamber piece – basically a theatrical play on celluloid – is the fruit of Hawke’s decades-long collaboration with director Richard Linklater, which began more than 30 years ago with 1995’s Before Sunrise . “The magic to the relationship is that it’s a little bit like riding a bike, you just don’t think about it. He sent me this script and the two of us just both felt this is one of the most ice-hot pieces of writing we ever came across. “And we wanted to share it with the world,” Hawke told AFP. Blue Moon takes place almost entirely in the bar of a Broadway restaurant where Hart takes refuge during the premiere of Oklahoma! – the first major show his long-time collaborator Richard Rodgers created with Oscar Hammerstein. Robert Kaplow’s dense and literary script is utterly dominated by Hawke, who told one journalist he had more dialogue in the first 30 minutes of screentime than in the entirety of his last four films. But, despite a bit of camera trickery and some digital effects, it is the physicality of a diminutive, balding and unattractive man that was a more time-consuming challenge for Hawke – the work of a decade for a script he first read in 2014. “I didn’t think I needed to age into it, but Rick did,” Hawke told trade title

Hawke credits his lengthy partnership with Linkletter for allowing him the space to strip back every vestige of vanity and build himself into this oddball lyricist. – PIC FROM GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP

Train Dreams director hopes to captivate with tale of ordinary man living in extraordinary times

WHEN director and screenwriter Clint Bentley decided to adapt Train Dreams for the big screen, he expressed hopes he could captivate audiences with the tale of an ordinary man living in extraordinary times – the early 20th century. Now, that vision – starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones – is up for four Oscars, including the coveted best picture prize. Bentley’s gamble on the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson appears to have paid off. “It has been overwhelming. I wanted to give something to the audience with the film and take them on a journey. But you never know how it is going to be received,” said the 41-year-old filmmaker. Train Dreams tells the story of Robert Grainier, a reserved logger and railroad worker in Idaho, and his wife Gladys, over the course of his entire life.

prize at the Spirit Awards honouring independent films, as well as awards for Bentley and Veloso. At the ceremony earlier this month in Santa Monica, Bentley reflected on the challenges and rewards of taking on such an ambitious project with a limited budget, including the construction of a period locomotive from plywood. “It was just a lot of steps along the way that all of us figured it out,” explained Bentley, whose first Oscar nomination came last year for best adapted screenplay for Sing Sing . He said he especially values Spirit Awards, because they offer important visibility to smaller films with scant resources, especially as they vie for Academy Awards with big studio projects. “It really gives them a boost in a beautiful way,” he said. – AFP

The Netflix film stands as the story of the American northwest’s transition to the modern era and a beautiful meditation on love, friendship, grief, loss and hope. “It is lovely that people are connected and seeing themselves in it. The story is really beautiful,” said Bentley. Train Dreams was filmed in Washington state and has so far won several prizes during Hollywood’s awards season, especially for cinematographer Adolpho Veloso. “A lot of movies really helped me in my life. So it’s amazing to be a small part of a movie that is doing that to other people,” said Veloso. “I feel like that’s the reason I wanted to do films in the first place, because movies were important for me, because I love movies,” said the 36-year-old Brazilian. Train Dreams won the top best feature

Bentley’s gamble on the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson has paid off. – AFPPIC