News

For the first time since her acclaimed Netflix series Ozarkconcluded, Laura Linney is returning to TV. The four-time Emmy winner will star opposite Kevin Kline in the new comedy series American Classic. The MGM+ series will begin production in New Jersey this summer.

Kline will star in the series as Richard Bean, a temperamental and egotistical Broadway legend who has a public meltdown and retreats to his hometown, Millersburg, where his family ran a well-regarded theater. Once he gets back, however, he finds that the once-respected playhouse has fallen on hard times, and is now running low-rent dinner theater. His brother Jon runs the theater with his wife, Kristen (Linney), who is also the small town's mayor. Richard has a complicated history with Kristen: decades ago, they were in love, and tried to achieve Broadway stardom together. However, she tired of his selfishness and retreated back to Millersburg, where she...

Ethan Hawke is giving a classic Western the remake treatment. The Moon Knight actor is reportedly on board to help develop an all-new take on the 20th Century Studios movie The Gunfighter.

Per Deadlline, Hawke has signed on to co-write the script for a new take on The Gunfighter, a 75-year-old Western with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, for 20th Century Studios. His writing partner, Shelby Gaines, will be alongside him as a co-writer. There is said to be hope at the studio that Hawke will also direct the remake, but the current deal that is in place is for the actor to serve as a writer and producer. It's also not known if Hawke will appear in the film, which is in its very early development stages.

RelatedThe 12 Best Clint Eastwood Westerns, Ranked

Clint Eastwood is a name that is synonymous with the Western genre and movies like A Few Dollars More...

In the 2022 HBO docuseries “The Last Movie Stars,” Ethan Hawke floats the possibility that the great Joanne Woodward’s risk-it-all role — the one that could have won the “Three Faces of Eve” star a second Oscar, had it gone differently — was playing a failed starlet who resorts to burlesque to get by. Adapted from the William Inge play “A Loss of Roses,” it was a part intended for Marilyn Monroe, who died, so Woodward stepped in and gave it her Method-acting all. Alas, the studio lost faith, recut the film and slapped a tacky new title on it: “The Stripper.”

In a different world, “The Last Showgirl” could have been such a vehicle for its leading lady, Pamela Anderson. Tightrope-walking the gossamer line between objectification and empowerment, the project lands amid a charitable reappraisal of Anderson’s career, during which a memoir, a Netflix doc and countless thinkpieces have caused...

In March 2020, during the first days of the Covid pandemic, IndieWire launched an Instagram Live series. The idea was to hold a causal conversation with talent about their creative process and how they spend their free time, a discussion that took on a very different meaning against the uncertain backdrop of the lockdown. IndieWire instinctively turned to Ethan Hawke to launch the series and set the tone; and at a time when most creatives understandably went dark, Hawke was hungry for the conversation.

Later that summer, the actor-writer-director gave a Ted-Ed talk, “Give yourself permission to be creative.” Even if you haven’t watched the nine-minute talk, you’ve seen it: Excerpts, four years later, still flood most social media feeds on a daily basis.

In the most viral clip, Hawke, discussing what happens to people when they suffer a great loss, said, “Did anyone feel like this before? What is happening to me?...

While he’s obviously famous for his celebrated acting career, Ethan Hawke is still a notable writer/director, as well as an author, stage actor, and more. Having just finished up the docuseries, “The Last Movie Stars,” in 2022, Hawke’s latest narrative directorial effort is “Wildcat,” based on the short stories of writer Flannery O’Connor. The period film set during the 1950s stars his daughter Maya Hawke (“Asteroid City”) as O’Connor with a supporting cast that consists of Laura Linney (“Ozark”), Steve Zahn (“8-Bit Christmas”), Vincent D’Onofrio (“Full Metal Jacket”), Cooper Hoffman (“Licorice Pizza”), Rafael Casal (“Blindspotting”), Phillip Ettinger, and Levon Hawke.

Continue reading ‘Wildcat’ Trailer: Ethan Hawke Directs Daughter Maya Hawke In Flannery O’Connor Drama Coming This May at The Playlist.

Maya Hawke stars as Flannery O’Connor, the celebrated author of Southern Gothic-inspired short stories, novels, and essays, in Wildcat.

The film, directed and co-written by Hawke’s father, Ethan Hawke, follows a 24 year-old Flannery in 1950s Georgia as she deals with a lupus diagnosis. She returns home to her mother, Regina (Laura Linney), and begins writing some of her most imaginative stories as she attempts to heal her relationship with her mom.

Throughout, the film offers fictionalized adaptations of several of Flannery’s most beloved short stories, which include cast members Rafael Casal, Cooper Hoffman, and Steve Zahn. Also appearing in Wildcat are Liam Neeson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Alessandro Nivola, Christine Dye, Willa Fitzgerald, and Ethan Hawke’s son, Levon Hawke. Watch the trailer for Wildcat below.

The film, which premiered at Colorado’s Telluride Film Festival in September 2023, is co-written by one of Hawke’s frequent theater collaborators, Shelby Gaines.

Coming off his stellar Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward documentary The Last Movie Stars, Ethan Hawke’s latest foray behind the camera is on the narrative side with the Flannery O’Connor biopic Wildcat. Marking a family affair, the film stars Maya Hawke as the celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing. Following stops at Telluride and TIFF last year, it’ll now open in theaters on May 3 and the first trailer has arrived.

Here’s more of the synopsis: “In 1950, Flannery (Maya Hawke) visits her mother Regina (Laura Linney) in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at twenty-four years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief. As...

Sometimes when you finish reading a good novel or collection of short stories, you look forward to picking it up again it in a year or two or 20, to reenter its world and discover new wisdom in its powers of observation, new flashes of light in its turns of phrase. Ethan Hawke’s Wildcat casts a similar spell, so rich is it in detail and nuance and creative juice. Drawing upon the distinctive voice of Flannery O’Connor, it’s a sublime portrait of a great writer, a movie I can’t wait to see again for its visual elegance, its electric leaps between an author’s life and her work, and the delicious, playful intensity of all the performances, with Maya Hawke and Laura Linney each taking on a half-dozen interconnected roles.

At one point in Wildcat, Flannery, embodied with terrific wit and feeling by Maya Hawke, rails against the...

Ethan Hawke is much more than an actor; he’s one of the most singular voices in American art and literary culture and has made his talents evident in multiple fields. Hawke has co-written many of the films that he stars in (including Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy), directed several films (such as the underrated musical gem Blaze), directed and starred in many stage plays, created documentaries like The Last Movie Stars, and regularly appears in a good mixture of studio action films, direct-to-vod thrillers, and the independent projects that he’s clearly so passionate about. Hawke has seemingly done it all, but some of Hawke’s fans may not know that in addition to writing films, he’s also authored several novels since the late 1990s. If Hawke is looking to make a splash as a director once again, many of his novels would be ripe for him to adapt.

Please Note: This forecast, assembled by The Hollywood Reporter’s executive editor of awards coverage Scott Feinberg, reflects his best attempt to predict the behavior of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, not his personal preferences. He arrives at these standings by drawing upon consultations with voters and strategists, analysis of marketing and campaigns, results of awards that precede the Emmys and the history of the Emmys itself.

*Best Drama Series*

Projected Nominees

Succession (HBO/Max)

The White Lotus: Sicily (HBO/Max)

The Last of Us (HBO/Max)

Better Call Saul (AMC)

Yellowjackets (Showtime)

The Crown (Netflix)

Andor (Disney+)

House of the Dragon (HBO/Max)

Alternate

The Diplomat (Netflix)

Potential Surprise

The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

Shoulda Been a Contenda

Yellowstone (Paramount)

*Best Comedy Series*

Projected Nominees

Abbott Elementary (ABC)

Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)

The Bear (FX)

Barry (HBO/Max)

Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

Wednesday (Netflix)

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel...

Please Note: This forecast, assembled by The Hollywood Reporter’s awards columnist Scott Feinberg, reflects his best attempt to predict the behavior of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, not his personal preferences. He arrives at these standings by drawing upon consultations with voters and strategists, analysis of marketing and campaigns, results of awards that precede the Emmys and the history of the Emmys itself. There will be regular updates to reflect new developments.

*Best Drama Series*

Frontrunners

Succession (HBO/Max)

The White Lotus: Sicily (HBO/Max)

The Last of Us (HBO/Max)

Better Call Saul (AMC)

Yellowjackets (Showtime)

House of the Dragon (HBO/Max)

The Crown (Netflix)

The Diplomat (Netflix)

Major Threats

Andor (Disney+)

The Mandalorian (Disney+)

The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

The Old Man (FX)

1923 (Paramount+)

Yellowstone (Paramount)

Possibilities

Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix) — podcast [Shonda Rhimes]

The Boys (Amazon)

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power...

Please Note: This forecast, assembled by The Hollywood Reporter’s awards columnist Scott Feinberg, reflects his best attempt to predict the behavior of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, not his personal preferences. He arrives at these standings by drawing upon consultations with voters and strategists, analysis of marketing and campaigns, results of awards that precede the Emmys and the history of the Emmys itself. There will be regular updates to reflect new developments.

*Best Drama Series*

Frontrunners

Succession (HBO/Max)

The White Lotus: Sicily (HBO/Max)

The Last of Us (HBO/Max)

Better Call Saul (AMC)

The Crown (Netflix)

Yellowjackets (Showtime)

The Mandalorian (Disney+)

The Diplomat (Netflix)

Major Threats

House of the Dragon (HBO/Max)

Andor (Disney+)

The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

The Old Man (FX)

1923 (Paramount+)

Yellowstone (Paramount)

Possibilities

Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix) — podcast [Shonda Rhimes]

The Boys (Amazon)

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power...

To those who don’t obsessively watch TCM, or generally eschew movies made before 1980, Rock Hudson is little more than a factoid, best remembered for his sexuality than for the movies he made. And yet, while Hudson today is known as a gay man, it was something that he did his best to keep hidden and, as Stephen Kijak lays out towards the end of his HBO documentary, would have taken to the grave if he could have.

“Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” is in the vein of other prominent documentaries aimed at telling the real story behind the Old Hollywood façade, including HBO’s most recent “The Last Movie Stars.” The revelations within the documentary’s 104-minute runtime aren’t revolutionary, but seek to give viewers an authentic look at a man whose life so often was swathed in artifice.

It’s impossible to underscore Hudson’s appeal...

Documentarian Emily Wachtel met Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward when she was two years old. They were neighbors in Westport. Conn, the dearest of family friends. “I knew them my whole life,” says Wachtel. “They are the reason I am in film.”

Wachtel, producer of CNN Films for Max’s six-part docuseries “The Last Movie Stars,” which paints a sweeping, intimate, romantic portrait of the life, love and careers of Newman and Woodward, describes her childhood with the famed couple as if something out of a suburban New England dream.

“They were incredible people,” says Wachtel. “I was so young when I met them, and I didn’t understand what a movie star was at the time. But part of that is because they were so real. They’d pick you up to go to birthday parties, Joanne made sweaters. They had this big, beautiful barn on the property and...

Please Note: This forecast, assembled by The Hollywood Reporter’s awards columnist Scott Feinberg, reflects his best attempt to predict the behavior of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, not his personal preferences. He arrives at these standings by drawing upon consultations with voters and strategists, analysis of marketing and campaigns, results of awards that precede the Emmys and the history of the Emmys itself. There will be regular updates to reflect new developments.

*Best Drama Series*

Frontrunners

Succession (HBO/Max)

The White Lotus: Sicily (HBO/Max)

The Last of Us (HBO/Max)

Better Call Saul (AMC)

The Crown (Netflix)

Yellowjackets (Showtime)

The Mandalorian (Disney+)

The Diplomat (Netflix)

Major Threats

House of the Dragon (HBO/Max)

Andor (Disney+)

The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

The Old Man (FX)

1923 (Paramount+)

Yellowstone (Paramount)

Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)

Possibilities

The Boys (Amazon)

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Amazon)

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story...

Please Note: This forecast, assembled by The Hollywood Reporter’s awards columnist Scott Feinberg, reflects his best attempt to predict the behavior of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, not his personal preferences. He arrives at these standings by drawing upon consultations with voters and strategists, analysis of marketing and campaigns, results of awards that precede the Emmys and the history of the Emmys itself. There will be regular updates to reflect new developments.

*Best Drama Series*

Frontrunners

Succession (HBO/Max)

The White Lotus: Sicily (HBO/Max)

The Last of Us (HBO/Max)

Better Call Saul (AMC)

The Crown (Netflix)

Yellowjackets (Showtime)

The Mandalorian (Disney+)

The Diplomat (Netflix)

Major Threats

House of the Dragon (HBO/Max)

The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

1923 (Paramount+)

Yellowstone (Paramount)

Andor (Disney+)

The Old Man (FX)

The Boys (Amazon)

Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Amazon)

Possibilities

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story...

This story about “The Last Movie Stars” originally appeared in the Race Begins issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

As actor-director Ethan Hawke was working on “The Last Movie Stars,” he showed a rough cut of the six-part Max docuseries about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward to his mom. She told him, “Well, you managed to make two of the greatest icons of my life completely human. Though I’m not sure if anybody’s gonna like that.” Although “The Last Movie Stars” is chock-full of clips from Newman and Woodward films, the series beautifully folds in themes of family, betrayal, aging, grief and healing. We spoke with Hawke about his labor of love.

Ethan Hawke (Getty Images)

The series is so artful and impressionistic, but it’s also impressive as an act of profile journalism. What was that like for you?

Years ago I wrote a profile of Kris Kristofferson for Rolling Stone,...

Fair warning to certain right-wing politicians. Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted virtual event, which kicks off its 2023 edition Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. Pt, will feature the appearance of … (dramatic pause) … drag queens. Miss Isabelle Brooks and Luxx Noir London are among the RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants joining us to talk about Season 15 of the MTV unscripted series. Not only that, but Grammy-winning recording artist Lizzo – an ally of the LGBTQ+ community who boldly invited several RuPaul’s Drag Race all-stars onto the stage at her recent Nashville concert — is also coming by to spill the tea on her HBO Max film Love, Lizzo, which documents her Cuz I Love You world tour.

Click here to sign up for and launch today’s livestream.

In a time of book banning, furor over how history is taught, and pearl-clutching over queens, count on Deadline as your uncensored guide to...

Turns out Maya isn’t the only musician in the Hawke/Thurman family. Ethan Hawke is making his debut as a music artist this month in an unexpected place: iconic pop-punk band Fall Out Boy’s upcoming eighth studio album, “So Much (for) Stardust.”

The news was announced by the “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” and “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” band on Friday, via a Twitter post revealing the full tracklist of their upcoming record. Hawke is listed as a featured guest on the song “The Pink Seashell,” and the only guest on the 13-track album. Fall Out Boy — which consists of Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Andy Hurley, and the on-hiatus Joe Trohman — has promoted the album with two singles, “Love from the Other Side” and “Heartbreak Feels So Good,” released in January.

Although best known for his work as an actor on acclaimed...

A pair of items once owned by the late Paul Newman — specifically, two wristwatches — have already proven themselves to be highly collectible at auction, with a rare Rolex Daytona gaveling for $17.8 million in 2017 and another Daytona selling for $5.4 million three years later.

Now, Sotheby’s auction house is readying a sale of more than 300 items from the collection of Newman, who died in 2008 at age 83, and his wife of 50 years, 93-year-old, Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward. (The actress was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2007.)

Set to take place across a series of Sotheby’s sales this June in New York, the collection, titled “The World of Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman,” encompasses objects that provide a window into both the professional and personal lives of the couple, recently chronicled in the six-part HBO Max docuseries The Last Movie Stars, directed by Ethan Hawke.

“Our parents have dedicated their lives to...

The American Cinema Editors group has revealed the nominees for the 2023 Eddie Awards, which will be handed out March 5 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

The live-action theatrical feature competition has two categories, drama and comedy. The nominees in the category of best edited dramatic feature are Sven Budelmann for All Quiet on the Western Front, Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond for Elvis, Monika Willi for Tár, Eddie Hamilton for Top Gun: Maverick and Terilyn A. Shropshire for The Woman King. Nominees for best edited comedic feature are Mikkel E.G. Nielsen for The Banshees of Inisherin, Paul Rogers for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Bob Ducsay for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Christopher Tellefsen for The Menu and Ruben Östlund and Mikel Cee Karlsson for Triangle of Sadness.

With her nomination for The Woman King, Shropshire becomes the second Black woman to be nominated for an Eddie in the dramatic feature category.

In 1986, Tom Cruise was on top of the world. Top Gun had come out and become the biggest movie of the year, minting him as a bonafide superstar. However, Cruise had bigger ambitions beyond being an action hero or heartthrob. He wanted to be a legitimate, respected actor; so before Top Gun ever hit theaters, he had already wrapped a role where he’d play opposite one of the biggest movies stars of all time – Paul Newman – whose career Cruise would likely want to emulate as the older actor was able to find the perfect balance between art and commerce, while never sacrificing his brand as a star. Their movie together – The Color of Money – would go on to be a highlight of both’s filmographies, and a notable gritty effort that paired them both, for the only time, with the great Martin Scorsese.

Flashback to 1961. Paul Newman was one...

Maya Hawke is set to take a leading role in a biopic about one of America's most indelible writers. According to Deadline, the "Stranger Things" and "Do Revenge" actor is set to star in and executive produce the film "Wildcat," which her father Ethan Hawke will direct and produce. "Wildcat" will tell the story of 20th-century Southern writer Flannery O'Connor, whose disturbing, religion-fueled Southern Gothic stories like "A Good Man is Hard To Find" and the novel "Wise Blood" remain literary mainstays to this day.

Maya Hawke will reportedly star as a young O'Connor in the stage before she published her first novel in 1952. The film is apparently a passion project for the star, with Ethan Hawke telling Deadline, "Maya has been working hard for years to put this project together, and we're grateful for the opportunity to introduce a new generation of filmgoers to the genius of Flannery O'Connor.

The farther away we get from it, the more "Ocean's Twelve" looks like somewhat of a miracle to me. Steven Soderbergh, high off the success of winning Best Director for "Traffic" and the box office smash that was "Ocean's Eleven," had the ability to flex his power by taking a sequel that took a dramatic left turn away from the appeal of that first movie. Every sequel Hollywood cranks out is so much of "the first movie but more," but Soderbergh completely shakes up the style. Naturally, most people weren't into it, but those of us who were couldn't have been more thrilled.

Because the film is such a departure, the place they arrived at was obviously not the first instinct of the filmmakers when discussing a sequel. In fact, the screenwriter for "Ocean's Eleven," Ted Griffin, did not even come along for the sequel. However, that did not mean...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2022, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

While 2022 marked a personal benchmark in films viewed––over 600, logged away here––the major takeaway was the confirmation of just how much greater an impression the theatrical experience leaves. As noted below, while there were films I viewed at home that I perhaps appreciated more, the fondest memories looking back at the year were at Mike Leigh, Dario Argento, and Toshiro Mifune retrospectives, the bountiful offerings at the New York Film Festival, the Joachim Trier-curated My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument, and even the double bill of Steven Spielberg’s Always and The Terminal we presented at the Roxy. The privilege of having access to these opportunities is not lost on me, however, and thankfully services like the Criterion Channel and Mubi...

Earlier this year, we spoke with Ethan Hawke about his soulful Apple TV+ movie, “Raymond and Ray,” co-starring Ewan McGregor and directed by Rodrigo Garcia. It’s a humanist meditation on brotherhood, family, grief, and trying to come to terms with that parent you had major issues with now that they’re gone (read our review).

Read More: The Best Documentaries of 2022

But now that the year is almost over and we’ve revealed our Best Documentaries of 2022 list—which featured Hawke’s Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward doc series, “The Last Movie Stars” at #1—now would be as good a time as any to roll out the second half of this interview where Hawke discusses this terrific documentary and much more (read our review).

Continue reading Ethan Hawke Talks ‘The Last Movie Stars,’ Working With Marvel, Paul Schrader & More at The Playlist.