Press hounding takes toll on Ethan Hawke

By MICHELE MANELIS

They say in Hollywood, if you invite the media to the wedding, you can expect them to show up for the divorce. And it seems that rule is no exception for Ethan Hawke, famously estranged from wife Uma Thurman, both 33, whose lives in recent months have become tabloid fodder around the globe.

Despite Hawke's insistence that his alleged infidelities (including an affair with a Canadian model) had nothing to do with the demise of their six-year marriage, he has taken a verbal beating in Hollywood - and it shows. This paparazzi-hounded actor has lost at least 6kg and his worn face looks as though he needs a good night's sleep.

In a New York hotel room to promote Taking Lives, the upcoming thriller in which he stars with Angelina Jolie and Keifer Sutherland, Hawke speaks candidly about his life.

"The truth is, when I really think about it, it would be pretty easy to stop all the attention. All I'd have to do is move to Prague for 10 years. Then I could do what I want and no one would write about me or who I'm going out with," he says. "I don't want to do that."

He pauses. "But does it make me upset that people write about things that's nobody's business? Yes. But obviously I have things that I enjoy about this situation more than I don't, or I wouldn't still be doing it." He smiles unexpectedly. "It's interesting to think about it."

Hawke leans back in his chair and lights a cigarette. "I'm not saying I've been treated unfairly," he shrugs.

"In an ideal world we wouldn't live in such a culture where actors or musicians are treated differently from anybody else. It's just a profession, and not even among the most important in society. People are being killed all over the world, the supreme court is in danger, guys at Enron have been stealing millions of dollars. And, what makes the headlines every day? Ben and J-Lo!" He rolls his eyes.

"There are substantial things we could all be thinking about but it's hard to think about substantial things because it challenges you. I don't know what I think about Enron or the revolution in Haiti. These are hard, complicated issues. Gossip is uncomplicated and it sells newspapers."

About the subject at hand, Hawke is willing to say, "There's no one-sentence answer to why people have trouble in their relationships. It's too rich and too deep for that. It's not about an event or one thing."

Hawke also gave an insight into their marriage on a television interview suggesting that it was difficult living with an ambitious woman who wants to be a movie star, and more poignantly that if "both partners want to be in the driver's seat, eventually two cars are needed".

But he does allude to the fact that their marriage fell apart before any purported indiscretions occurred. Both Thurman and Hawke reside in New York City and share custody of their children: Maya, 5, and Roan, 2.

On a roll, Hawke rants about monogamy and the puritanical attitudes towards sex in the US.

"This country is still very Victorian. Ideally, a healthy love affair in a monogamous relationship is really thrilling and people who achieve it over a sustained period of time are deeply evolved people. It's a certain kind of evolution. Some of us are better at other things. Some people are really good at relationships and nurturing each other and some people aren't as good at it. That doesn't mean talented and intelligent men can't lead the country. There's a long list of productive, successful leaders who were not monogamous men: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, FDR, JFK. It doesn't mean they're bad people."

Not your average bland, smile-and-say-the-right-thing variety of movie star, Hawke is outspoken, doesn't beg to be liked, and seems comfortable in his own skin. Refreshingly, this Texan-born, New Jersey-raised actor isn't blindly patriotic.

"I think this country is ass-backwards about sex and violence. We show the Superbowl, this great football game and every other advertisement on television is for Viagra or some other form of male sexual enhancement and the whole sport is about smacking people around. People get up in the middle of the show and they're grabbing their crotch and they're doing that stuff and then someone shows their breast and the whole world is offended! It's ridiculous. I don't buy it. I'll take sex over violence any day."

But he certainly chose violence when it came to his role in Taking Lives, in which he plays an art dealer who gets embroiled in the search for a serial killer and eventually becomes the prime target.

"The fun of watching a movie like this is that you think he's the bad guy and then you doubt whether he's the bad guy," he says. "Hopefully, the movie is fun to watch whether you know who it is or not."

Although his personal life might not be at an all-time high point, his career is doing well. He earned an Oscar nomination for his role as a rookie cop in Training Day. More recently, he rejoined director Richard Linklater and Julie Delpy for Before Sunset, the sequel to the 1995 Before Sunrise and just completed a stint on Broadway as Henry IV.

The former Gen X heart-throb, who came to the world's attention in Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites and Alive, has for the most part set his career in below-the-radar films such as Great Expectations, Snow Falling on Cedars. Hawke has written two novels: The Hottest State (in 1996) and Ash Wednesday (2002). He has also turned his creative endeavours to directing. His first short movie, Straight to One, garnered good reviews and he went on to direct his first feature film, the little-seen Chelsea Walls, in 2001.

In summing up the current state of his life, he says, "There's no handbook for the right way to handle this kind of situation. Obviously, it's not one of the more joyous times in my life but I think as you get older you realise that you have to be happy, experience life and learn to appreciate it. I've had a really good life so far.

"Overall, I've got nothing to feel unhappy about. It's all still very present tense for me.

"I can't look back on it now and tell you something pithy to say about what I've learned about myself during this time or any words of wisdom," he says. "Only time will tell."

* Taking Lives opens on April 29.