Ethan Hawke

In Before Sunrise (1995), Ethan Hawke’s Jesse can keep a conversation going, but being quiet with Julie Delpy’s Céline is harder. The two actors let us see how much effort goes into seeming at ease with someone new. We felt nervous for them when the conversation stopped, because neither could hide behind another clever remark. Richard Linklater gives Hawke room to talk, but it is the embarrassment between the exchanges that makes the romance worth caring about.

The 1990s roles, including Reality Bites (1994) and Gattaca (1997), established him, with earnestness already a liability. That liability is audible even in Before Sunrise, where the conversation occasionally admires its own intelligence. Linklater remained the important collaborator through the Before trilogy (1995–2013) and Boyhood (2014), allowing Hawke’s conversational style to develop across years. Delpy’s work as co-star and co-writer on the trilogy matters too: these exchanges need someone who can make him listen.

In Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind (2023), Hawke’s Clay Sandford is agreeable and poorly equipped for trouble. He plays a man who cannot read a paper map and knows he ought to be able to manage it. The film eventually explains too much, and Julia Roberts gives the stronger reason to stay. Still, Hawke’s willingness to look inadequate helps its tense, funny first hour.

The later work has made more room for horror, from Sinister (2012) to Scott Derrickson’s Black Phone 2 (2025). As the Grabber in the latter, Hawke is mostly a mask and a voice, and he makes the voice soft and pleased with itself. The pleasure in that voice makes him frightening without much help from the mask. The film overexplains itself, but Hawke needs little to make the threat felt. Start with Before Sunrise, and give its awkward silences time to work.