-Our first guest tonight is
an Academy Award- and Tony-nominated
actor, writer, and director
you know from films such as "Training Day" and "Boyhood"
and the shows "The Good Lord Bird" and "Moon Knight."
His documentary series "The Last Movie Stars"
is streaming now on HBO Max.
Please welcome back to the show
our good friend Ethan Hawke, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
I love it. Looking sharp, my man. Looking sharp.
-I'm about to go on the "Louisiana Hayride"
with Hank Williams. -I love it.
-By the way, that album cover looks insanely cool.
-Yeah. -Does it not remind you
a little bit of Khonsu from "Moon Knight"?
I don't know if you saw "Moon Knight."
-Yes, I did. -But it's got
a little Khonsu vibe to it. -We try very hard --
we always want to also promote your work
when we promote the guest drummer.
-I appreciate that.
I appreciate you thinking about me
and I'm thinking about you.
-Yeah, it's very nice.
Hey, this is -- we've talked about this, like, two years ago
how this project came across your plate.
This is a wonderful six-part documentary series
about Paul Newman -- -Can I stop you?
-Yeah, please. -This has never happened to me.
My shirt is stuck on the thing, and I'm kind of casually
pretending that it's not stuck, but I got it off now.
Okay, go on. You were saying? It was so interesting.
-It would've been so great to go back and watch
you do the whole interview where only --
you're only gesticulating with one hand.
[ Laughter ]
So, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward,
this is about their career, their romance.
It's wonderful. It's great archival footage.
And how -- but how did it come across your plate?
-Well, this wonderful producer named Emily Wachtel,
she is really close with the family -- been a longtime friend
and felt like it was really time
to make a documentary about them.
They -- I guess Claire Newman and I
actually went to the same high school my senior year,
and so somehow they thought of me.
I think they thought -- A lot of people
when they think of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward,
they have this, like, "celebrity idea" in their head,
and I think the family really wanted somebody to revisit them
as artists and actors
and as people who dedicated their life
to the performing arts.
And they thought that I might be the right person to do that.
I had no idea what they were thinking about
or why they did it.
I mean, I literally was sitting on the phone thinking,
"That sounds like so much work." -[ Laughs ] Yeah.
-I desperately don't want to do this.
But I couldn't get the words "no" out of my mouth, you know?
So I said, "Sure, yeah. I'll do it."
And then there went three years of my life.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-Well, the payoff is very nice. We thank you for your sacrifice.
-No, I did it because I love them and I feel like...
Oh, I don't know. You could talk about it for a long time.
But just the role of heroes in our life,
of people that we can look up to.
These are like two white people
that were born with a lot who did a lot with it.
They dedicated their life to meaningful, substantive arts
and they did it with --
in the middle of having a 50-year love affair
and they gave away hundreds of millions of dollars.
They're part of -- I just admire the way they lived their lives.
So, whenever you think it's not possible to be a good person
and have a good time and cut a lane for yourself
where you're actually part of the solution,
it is possible, and Paul and Joanne are proof.
-Yeah, they really are proof.
And it is really -- You know, I think that, you know,
I was certainly aware of, like, Paul Newman's Own, right?
Like, growing up as a kid, seeing it at the super market.
I was like, "Oh, look," you know, "that's,
you know...Butch Cassidy."
But I didn't quite realize that, you know,
the breadth of their charity.
-Oh, you know, the thing is you always hear this thing about
this billionaire who gave away hundreds of millions of dollars,
but Paul and Joanne didn't have hundreds of millions of dollars.
They gave away exponentially more money than they kept,
and I think that's really beautiful.
And the fact that they used -- That hadn't been done before,
to create a non-for-profit company and to use his celebrity
to generate wealth and opportunity for other people.
-You -- It's called "The Last Movie Stars,"
and, you know, the idea of what's celebrity
and how it's changed
and how it's harder to,
you know, achieve what they did.
But what made you -- You know, obviously I think this was --
maybe Gore Vidal had made the observation.
What made you choose it as the title?
-I don't know. It caught my --
When I read Gore Vidal said that they were the last movie stars
and what he meant was that the last generation to come up
the same way the first movie stars did through acting class,
through the studio system, the hard-earned road
before -- You know, back in a period
where there were a handful of movies made a year,
it was a really big deal to be in a movie.
Now there's, you know, 20 movies come out a weekend,
so it is different.
But when I first read it, I thought,
"No, they're not movie stars.
They're actors. Why would he think that?"
But I found that it made me think the title,
so I thought, "Well, that's a good title."
-Yeah. -I don't really agree with it,
but I like it. -I do really love anytime --
I always feel like it's a gift not just to young actors
but people -- young people in any field
who might not feel sure of themselves.
Like, in this first episode especially,
you see a Paul Newman who lacks confidence and isn't sure.
-That meant the most to me.
I mean, 'cause you can't imagine
Cool Hand Luke being insecure. -Yeah.
-I mean, it just doesn't really --
But then you start picturing -- Paul Newman was in acting class
with James Dean and Marlon Brando.
I mean, those are two of the other students in the class.
Forget, you know, Geraldine Page, Marilyn Monroe, Ben G--
I mean, the list is endless.
So he was not the best student in that class.
And his life's journey, which I find so inspiring,
is that he got better and better and better and better,
whereas a lot of his peer group gets burned out,
gets lost, gets confused, gets crushed by celebrity,
whatever the different stories.
But he was definitely insecure.
Would change his shirt three times a day
'cause he sweat so much.
-There's a screen test I guess with him and James Dean
where he just looks... He looks like a dork.
-The actor in you knows, "Oh, wow, you're nervous."
He doesn't know how to move his face,
kind of like me on this show right now.
[ Laughter ] And, no, it is.
I find it so charming to see him, you know, with James Dean.
-Yeah, because you realize it's a journey for everybody.
Nobody's born like the public version of Paul Newman.
No one's born -- -I wish I was, but nobody is.
-Yeah. Alright. I got a lot more to ask you.
We'll be right back with more from Ethan Hawke, everybody.