- Ethan Hawke earns first Best Actor Oscar nomination.
- Nomination comes 25 years after Training Day nod.
- Hawke recognized for role in Blue Moon.
- 98th Academy Awards ceremony scheduled for March 15.
Twenty-five years after Training Day, the 55-year-old actor earns his first Best Actor nomination for Blue Moon and says the time in between went far too fast.
Ethan Hawke has said his fifth Oscar nomination his first in the Best Actor category feels like a full circle moment in a career now spanning four decades, reflecting on the 25 years separating his recognition for Blue Moon from his first nod for Training Day in 2002.
Speaking to People magazine on February 28, Hawke said: "I was the youngest in my category and now I'm the oldest. And it happened so fast. It feels like six years ago that Training Day came out to me in my brain, so it's hard not to think about a lifetime spent doing this.
I'm incredibly grateful to be here and to still be doing this dance because I enjoy it a lot, but it does make you think a lot about time." Hawke is nominated at the 98th Academy Awards alongside Timoéthée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael B. Jordan and Wagner Moura. The ceremony takes place March 15.
On Denzel, 2001 and the Patience That Has Carried Him Through
When asked what he would say to his younger self on the night of that first nomination, Hawke offered warmth and perspective in equal measure. "I was having a great time in 2001. I don't know if I needed a lot of advice.
I knew how fortunate I was to be there, to get to do this whole event with Denzel. He's one of the greatest actors who's ever lived, and so to get to ride shotgun that wasn't lost on me what a special experience that was," he said. He added: "I've always been patient. It wasn't like I was here like a bag of anxiety (or) nerves. I enjoyed every second, and I'm trying to do the same now."
Blue Moon: A Decade in the Making and the Hardest Role of His Career
In Blue Moon, directed by longtime collaborator Richard Linklater, Hawke plays lyricist Lorenz Hart in a film set almost entirely on one evening at Sardi's Restaurant in New York. Hawke told Variety he first read the script more than ten years ago and spent the intervening years immersing himself in Hart's world at his own pace.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter on the demands of the role, he said: "There have been a handful [of roles] that have been extremely challenging. It's just one of the few jobs that's used everything I've learned over the years, from the physical stuff, to the vocal work, to the movement work, to the verbiage, to the text, to the ideas that we're trying to communicate.
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It was not a light lift." Blue Moon also earned a Best Original Screenplay nomination for writer Robert Kaplow a development Hawke called deeply meaningful. "It was even sweeter that Robert Kaplow was nominated because that makes me feel like people really saw the movie," he said.
