Ethan Hawke Planning To Reunite With Richard Linklater & Julie Delpy To Write Third ‘Before Sunrise’ Film
Despite a brief flirtation with major stardom, Ethan Hawke has stayed relatively true to the independent scene with his relationship with fellow Texan Richard Linklater seemingly personifying this notion. The two have teamed up for no less than six films including “Waking Life,” “Tape,” “The Newton Boys,” “Fast Food Nation” and, of course, “Before Sunrise” and its sequel “Before Sunset.” While Hawke and Linklater also have their long-term project “Boyhood” in the works as well (more on that later), it looks like the two are at it again plotting a reunion with Julie Delpy for a third installement of the uber-popular ‘Before…’ series.
In an ingeniously structured interview with French outlet Allocine, which used music cues to draw out honest, candid responses from the actor about his filmography, the ‘Before…’ series was brought into the conversation by co-star/scribe Delpy’s 2004 song “Je T’aime Tant” which yielded an interesting response from Hawke about the how immediate their plans may be.
“Well, I don’t know what we’re going to do but I know the three of us have been talking a lot in the last six months,” Hawke revealed. “All of three of us have been having similar feelings that we’re ready to revisit those characters. There’s nine years between the first two movies and, if we made the film next summer, it would be nine years again so we’re really started thinking that would be a good thing to do. We’re going to try write it this year.”
It does seem like an unrealistic aim to write the film by year’s end and have production get underway 6 months after that, the ‘Before…’ films are relatively small productions, so anything is possible. And at the moment, their schedules aren’t too busy eitheras Linklater is finished on “Bernie,” Hawke recently wrapped lensing on “Total Recall” with Delpy’s slate looking relatively free.
The interview also touched on Linklater’s “Boyhood” which Hawke reaffirmed was “a movie about childhood. We’ve been making a short film once a year for nine years and it follows the life of a little boy from the time he’s six to his eighteen. We have a few more years to go but we’re almost done with it. I play his father, the little kid’s the lead of the movie. It’s a movie about time. You’ll watch us all age in the movie, it’s about growing up — I can’t wait for people to see it.”
The actor also adds that he was set to feature in “Gattaca” helmer Andrew Niccol‘s fallen project “The Cross” (the musical cue was Buffalo Springfield‘s “For What It’s Worth“; the opening credit’s for their second collaboration “Lord Of War“). The project was building a fairly solid cast including Orlando Bloom, Olga Kurylenko, Vincent Cassel and John Goodman for the story of a man in the near future trying to be the first to cross a mysterious border while a guard will go to any lengths to stop him.
“I feel like he should have a pass from the government and they should let him make any movie he wants, ” Hawke reavealed. “The trouble with him is that his ideas for movies are often very expensive. I was going to do another movie , a script of his that’s such a brilliant story. It was another science fiction movie, beautiful, called the ‘The Cross.’ Maybe someone will give us some money to make that. I really want to make that movie.” Hawke admits he has yet to see “In Time,” however, and probably hasn’t spoken to Niccol recently as it looks like the director is set to next tackle an adaptation of “Twilight” novelist Stephanie Meyer’s “The Host” starring Saoirse Ronan.
Either way, it’s highly exciting to see Hawke, Linklater and Delpy at least plan to reunite for another ‘Before…’ series film. Are we looking at “After Sunrise” here? “After Sunset”? Or could we be moving onto something else entirely? If things pan out, we’re sure we’ll hear more about this soon enough.
