AfriPulse
On the eve of the 2026 Oscars, where Ethan Hawke was nominated for his soulful turn as Broadway composer Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon , the best-actor hopeful considered his humble red-carpet origins. “The first time I ever wore a tux, Dead Poets Society was playing at the Venice Film Festival. I just rented a tuxedo at some seaside strip mall a couple hours before,” Hawke told Vanity Fair ahead of his final fitting for the 98th Academy Awards. “They almost kicked me out because I wore Converse high-tops.”
It’s a far cry from the custom Prada suit that Hawke sported at Sunday’s 2026 Oscars, which featured a black silk tuxedo coat, as well as a matching gilet and trousers. The look’s origins date to last month, when Hawke was on father-of-the-bride duty for his daughter, fellow actor and musician Maya Hawke. “My daughter just got married and she loves the people at Prada,” he says. “I met them and worked with them from Maya’s wedding, so that made it feel kind of personal. I thought, If I’m going to the big show, I’ll wear some Prada. They’ve been good to my daughter.”
Working with stylist Michael Fisher, who memorably outfitted Hawke in a Dior by Jonathan Anderson military-inspired vest at the 2026 Actor Awards, he completed the look with a sage poplin shirt, black satin bow tie, and black leather boots. Nearly 40 years after that strip-mall suit, Hawke still admits, “Presenting yourself is really hard. But that’s one of the wonderful aspects of getting older, is you start to feel more comfortable in your own eccentricity.”
Back in 2002, when a then 31-year-old Hawke was nominated for best supporting actor for Training Day, “I don’t think I gave a second’s thought to what I was wearing,” Hawke laughs. “The first time is otherworldly. You feel like you’re in The Hunger Games, because you watch it as a kid and all of a sudden you’re stepping into it. I got to do it with Denzel [Washington], which made it incredibly fun, and he won [best actor], so we all felt like we were part of history.” Hawke has earned four more nominations since then, including best supporting actor for Boyhood (2014), best-adapted-screenplay nods for Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013), and his first best-actor nod for Blue Moon at the 2026 Oscars.
Four of those five nominations have their origin in Hawke’s more than 30-plus-year collaboration with filmmaker and friend Richard Linklater. Their partnership began in 1995 with the romantic drama Before Sunrise, starring Hawke and Julie Delpy as strangers who meet on a train and roam Vienna for the night. They’ve made two sequels since: Before Sunset in 2004 and Before Midnight in 2013. Hawke and Linklater have done nine total projects together, with a 10th on the way. “We’re finishing the script right now, and really hope to make it this year,” says Hawke.
Blue Moon stars Hawke as lyricist Lorenz Hart on the opening night of Oklahoma!, a musical written by Hart’s longtime collaborator, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), and Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). “We would’ve done the whole thing for free and been happy if nobody saw it,” Hawke says of making Blue Moon with Linklater. “That’s kind of how all the projects I’ve done with him have felt. When you get to go to a big dance like this, with work you did with one of your best friends in the whole world, you kind of feel like you beat the algorithm. We just did it our way. It gives the whole thing an outlaw spirit that I really like. I feel like we’re crashing the party.”
That mindset is why Hawke opted not to draft an acceptance speech in case he won over eventual 2026 Oscars best-actor winner Michael B. Jordan. “It irritates me so much when people walk up onstage and go, ‘Hey, I had no idea I was going to win.’ It’s like, ‘Well, you had some idea,’” he quips. “This is the thing: If you prepare a speech, it makes you want to win. Like, God, I really do want to thank that person or make this joke or statement that you believe in.’”
By Arturo Holmes/Getty Images.
At 55, Hawke has some hard-earned perspective on awards recognition—or lack thereof. “There’s a few times in my life when I’ve been on the outside looking in, where you feel like you did really good work and were almost a part of the big tribute to movies, and that’s kind of hard,” he says. “So I always want to walk with a little humility about it, and remember what this thing really is. It’s a celebration of movies that kind of functions as an advertisement for our industry.”
Hawke, an impassioned cinephile himself, thinks the Oscars help serve a higher purpose, particularly in the “volatile political situation” unspooling as the show airs. “When you think about the news right now, I constantly think mankind can only bear so much reality. That art has a great opportunity not to teach us how to live, but to teach us why to live and to make you want to live and make you look at your life,” says Hawke. “Nights like this are, in a way, obviously superficial, and in another way, really meaningful to sustaining the whole profession. So I try to go into the whole thing with as much of a sense of humor as possible.”
As Hawke sees it, this year’s big winners for best director, original screenplay, and actor in a leading role are more than up to the challenge. “I’ll probably remember forever how unbelievably generous and gracious Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, and Michael B. Jordan have been through this whole process,” he says. “They’re such great statesmen for the profession.”
Hawke attended the 2026 Oscars with his wife and producing partner, Ryan, whom he refers to as “a fun date.” He stops to laugh. “She’s dancing in the other room now,” he continues. “You have to make sure you don’t get drunk too early. We have a bunch of kids watching [at home], so we have to handle ourselves with dignity.” The opinions of their children aside, Hawke fears the wrath of another dark force: “It’s a small thing called the internet. There exists at every moment the possibility that you will do something to humiliate yourself. That kind of zaps the fun out of living life to its fullest.”
But Hawke is eager to exhibit a bit of that aforementioned “outlaw spirit” anyway, starting his Oscar Sunday with breakfast and a michelada. “It’s like a Bloody Mary, but instead of vodka, it’s a beer—just nice and mellow to get the day rolling.” He’s even learned to embrace the elements of the Oscars he used to reject. “When Willie Nelson was young, he really liked old cowboy boots and hats because he thought they had character,” says Hawke, “and as he’s gotten older, he realized that he has character. And so [now] he likes new clothes. That’s kind of my relationship to anything having to do with fashion.” Fittingly enough, when Hawke changed into another custom Prada suit for the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, he accessorized it with a pair of brown leather cowboy boots.
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Source: VanityFair | Read the Full Story…
