Ethan Hawke will lose at the Oscars. But he will always win our hearts

At Monday’s Oscars, when Adrien Brody steps on stage to announce the winner for best actor, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen. I don’t mean that Adrien Brody might read out the winner’s name in a Jamaican patois (sure, hopefully); I mean we have no idea who the winner will even be.

If you follow Oscars coverage as lamely as I do, you’ve probably read multiple variations on the phrase “widest best actor race ever”. There’s usually a clear frontrunner by now, but this year the nominees – including Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent), Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) and Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another) – have split the awards season honours, which means any of them could triumph at the Oscars.

Except Ethan Hawke. Ethan Hawke has zero chance (or, officially, 33/1 outside odds, according to online bookies).

Hawke, 55, landed his fifth Oscar nomination (and his first as a lead actor) for his portrayal of lyricist Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon. It’s a fantastic performance, all pompous affectations masking a tortured loneliness. Hawke’s in every scene of the movie, sporting a horrible comb over, rambling a mile-a-minute, and lusting awkwardly after Margaret Qualley. He makes bare-faced desperation look romantic, right until he dies alone in a dirty gutter.

He probably should win an Oscar for it. But Ethan Hawke doesn’t win Oscars, just like he didn’t win for best supporting actor for Training Day or Boyhood, a movie he spent 12 years of his life shooting.

This is fine. This is how it should be. Ethan Hawke transcends Hollywood awards. He’s an actor’s actor, in it for the craft rather than the glory. He has crooked teeth! On Reddit, illiterates call him “pretentious”. But as someone who dreams of a world of Jeremy Strongs, I #StandWithEthan.

Ever since he started, Hawke’s always been an actor with a foot both inside and outside Hollywood. He’s the kind of star who walks a red carpet wearing a snap-button Western shirt and a bolo tie, like he just wandered over from a Drive-By Truckers gig. I appreciate this; it indicates personal taste and a rich inner life.

Hawke’s movie star trajectory has been kind of hilarious, in a “God’s practical joke” sort of way. When he was 14 he landed his first lead role in Joe Dante’s The Explorers, opposite River Phoenix. The movie bombed and he went back to high school, only to watch his co-star become a generational icon.

Years later – after acclaimed roles in Dead Poets Society and Reality Bites – he auditioned for the lead in Titanic, and then watched as the same thing happened to Leonardo DiCaprio. In hindsight, he tells the story with relief – “I don’t think I would have handled that success as well as Leo,” he told GQ – but you’d imagine he considered himself cursed at the time.

It could’ve been demoralising – being so close to superstardom, yet always so far – but Hawke and his cheekbones went the indie route. He famously turned down a role in Independence Day, so he could make Before Sunrise with Richard Linklater.

Before Sunrise is better than an Oscar. It is a perfect movie. They should show it to teenagers in high school, so they can dream about the possibilities beyond their boring routine or their exam results in “Mathematics Extension 1”. One day you can travel overseas, read a book on a train, and play pinball with a fun girl in a dive bar in Vienna while talking about the dumbest things.

The Before Sunrise trilogy – Before Sunset is also great, but don’t watch Before Midnight unless you dream about child custody arbitration – and his extended collaboration with Linklater has made Hawke the most anti-star of Hollywood stars. “The times in my life I’ve tried to sell out have failed miserably,” he once told The Guardian, citing Taking Lives, the thriller he made with Angelina Jolie, as his most shameful screen decision.

He has routinely interrupted his career to write novels. Hawke loves literature; he was reading Dostoevsky at 14 (as I’ve read in more than one profile). He published his first book The Hottest State, in 1996. Reviewing it on Goodreads, Rose Byrne said, “it’s kind of like a Ryan Adams song but not as good,” which is a perfect review, even if Hawke won’t let her forget it.

Hawke has a sense of humour about people’s reactions to his books – “I remember my favourite review, in some underground paper,” he once told The New Yorker, “it said ‘Ethan Hawke achieves the impossible.’ I thought, Oh, I want to read this review. And it said, ‘He sucks his own cock.’” – but, like a true writer, he keeps writing them. (I recently read his last one, A Bright Ray of Darkness, about an actor spiralling following a public divorce. By page 23, you’ll feel he’s personally challenging you to despise him.)

No one’s perfect, a universal truth I realise every time I’m reminded that Hawke allegedly cheated on Uma Thurman with the family’s nanny. Look, we don’t know what goes on in the private lives of famous couples – and Hawke has always denied adultery was involved – but he’s been married to the nanny ever since and they’ve made two kids. At least he didn’t waste his (alleged) adultery?

In the immediate aftermath of his divorce from Uma, Hawke moved into Manhattan’s famed Hotel Chelsea – former home of Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Sid Vicious and Patti Smith – where he lived for two years. It’s cliched, but romantic. Even Hawke’s midlife crisis was a work of art.

It’s really the only scandal he’s been involved with. Ethan Hawke is the kind of celebrity whose defining public anecdote is that he once crafted a mixtape for his child collecting all the best post-Beatles solo tracks into something called The Black Album (it was later woven into a scene in Boyhood and, more recently, was the subject of a viral Subway Takes). This is probably why Ethan Hawke – sure, and Uma – is responsible for the world’s best nepo baby, Maya Hawke.

Not to make this creepier than it already is, but I’ve seen Hawke in dad mode. About 20 years ago, while touristing on New York’s High Line, my partner and I randomly spotted Hawke with a kid on his shoulders and another on his arm. We secretly trailed him for about four blocks until we felt gross and peeled off. He was just a normal dad, enjoying a day with his kids on the crisp autumn streets of Chelsea.

I once told Maya Hawke this whole story. “Hey, I think I accidentally stalked you and your dad one time when you were about eight.” She laughed politely, and we moved on. Regardless, Ethan is still responsible for my favourite piece of celebrity parenting: that time he forced his son to swap seats with him so he could flirt with Rihanna courtside at a Knicks game.

Recently, Hawke’s taken on a fun new persona as a sort of erudite elder statesman of the arts, an excitable real-talk intellectual. Listen to him on a podcast, he’s so charming and interesting. I recently sat through two-and-a-half hours of Joe Rogan ranting about the time a TV critic insulted Fear Factor just because Hawke was on the show discussing how fragile he still feels his career is.

Oftentimes, he’ll just say crazy stuff. “The person who’s had the most impact on acting since Marlon Brando, the only person who’s really changed acting, is Julia Roberts,” he’ll say, and you’ll sit through a one-hour conversation just to understand his considered logic.

Last year, he did Variety’s Actors on Actors with Sydney Sweeney, just as Sweeney was getting pulverised online for failing to disavow her eugenics jeans ad. Hawke could sense Sweeney’s trepidation, and he was so sweet to her, offering career advice like a cool dad and filling the conversation’s awkward silences to give Sweeney a breather from tabloid scrutiny.

There was a beautiful moment at last month’s BAFTAs, when British actor Robert Aramayo shocked everyone to beat out DiCaprio, Chalamet and Jordan to win the award for best leading actor for his role in the Tourette’s drama, I Swear. Aramayo used his acceptance speech to recall the time when, while studying at Juilliard, Hawke paid a visit to his class and gave students a talk on longevity as an actor, on protecting their instrument and avoiding self-destructive behaviours. “It had a great impact on everyone in that room, so to be in this category with you tonight is incredible,” said Aramayo.

The camera cut to Hawke, seated in the audience, his eyes damp, his jaw gnashing uncomfortably. He turned to the person next to him and mouthed, “That’s better than winning.” This is why Ethan Hawke doesn’t need an Oscar.

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