Name: Ethan Hawke On Shooting "Boyhood" For 12 Years | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-12-18T16:00:44.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ethan Hawke On Shooting "Boyhood" For 12 Years | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-12-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ethan Hawke On Shooting "Boyhood" For 12 Years | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-12-18. Transcript available.

The crowd goes crazy.
Nice suit.
And Ethan Hawke.
What's your middle name?
My middle name is Green.
Green?
Green, yeah.
Ethan Green Hawke.
What a great name that is.
I met my stepbrother when my mother was falling in love with this other man.
I met him and he said, it sounds like a candy bar.
Is that Green Hawke?
Yeah, I don't know why.
It doesn't sound like a candy bar, but don't hold that against him.
Okay.
Congratulations on your, well, on everything.
But tell me about your family.
Since we last saw you, how many kids do you have now?
I've got four kids now.
Whoa, way to go, my friend.
Four kids.
It makes Christmas fun.
What ages are we?
Okay, so my oldest is 16.
That's Maya.
And then I have a 12-year-old son named Levon.
And then I have two little ones.
Clementine, six, and Indiana is three.
Man.
Now, first of all, congratulations on the kids.
Yeah.
But what an interesting selection of names.
Tell me about Indiana.
Why is one named Indiana?
Well, some people think it's because I'm a giant Raiders of the Lost Ark fan or
something
like that.
Is that it?
No.
No.
I'm worried that it's going to sound weird, but George Sand is one of the first,
like,
real feminist authors.
And she wrote a book called Indiana.
And so my wife loves that book for that reason, just as a...
And so I thought I liked Raiders of the Lost Ark.
She liked George Sand.
So he went with it.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, the next question.
Have you spent time in Indiana?
Well, I was a big Colts fan until they don't have Peyton Manning, and I'm off
them now.
No, no.
No.
See, this is a mistake.
Things are better than ever for you.
You have the Indianapolis Colts.
You have the Denver Colts.
You get to root for both.
Well, I guess.
I guess I have spent time in Indiana because my father for a long time lived
there.
He lived in Indianapolis.
He worked in insurance there.
So that's why...
You know, I'm from Indianapolis.
Well, so did you ever meet my dad?
Uh-huh.
He handles all my insurance.
He might.
You don't know.
Okay, now, so...
Let me ask you this.
In your household, is Santa Claus a thing or not a thing?
Santa Claus is very much a thing, David.
Now, let me just take a guess here.
Santa Claus not a thing for the 16-year-old or not a thing for the 16-year-old?
She is a very cool young woman, and she enjoys presents.
So she'll play along.
She's quiet as a mouse.
She doesn't speak on the subject, you know?
That's what I'm saying, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, what are you saying?
It's a big deal to get her awake in time to, like, open the presents with the
other kids.
Well, I'm looking forward to that because at our house, it's first light,
everybody up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Makes for a long day.
Now, you said you had a 10-year-old?
A 12.
12-year-old.
The boy's 12.
Leave on.
Now, is he beyond Santa?
He's beyond Santa.
Is there anyone that's really beyond Santa?
Well, that's a good point.
You know?
That's a good point.
I mean, here's the thing.
The most fun, and in our house, what people go really nuts for is the stockings.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and Santa provides major stockings, and Santa puts a lot of thought
into the stockings.
You know, like, and the Internet is very useful for Santa on that.
Well, I admire this because I think there's so much excess associated with this
holiday,
and if we limit it to the stockings, I think that's a step in the right
direction, so to speak.
I don't know if other people go through.
I know that it's very hard.
Christmas can bring up, can make some people really sad because they...
I get very sad at Christmas.
You do?
I do.
I get very sad.
I wasn't thinking of you, but...
No, why would you think of me?
Why would anybody think of me, for God's sakes?
What I mean is...
I'm moving to the Netherlands.
Screw me.
I'm sorry, I'm a little sensitive.
You just don't want to buy them too many presents, and you don't want to buy
them not enough, and it's...
You want them to understand the correct spirit of the holiday, family and
giving and caring for others.
But I have a lot of pressure with my son because I'm not sure whether Santa
Claus has left him or not.
And so every year, we have to put on a little thing.
We write the note to Santa, and then we leave out carrots for the reindeer.
And so then I bust up the carrots and throw them around the house and step on
them like there was actual reindeer in the house.
We did little footprints.
We took the dog.
And you feel like, oh, my God, if I don't do something correct, is this going
to smash the little kid?
So this year, I just was tired of the whole thing.
So you know the fence, the screen you put over the fireplace?
Yeah.
I just kicked it over.
And that worked?
It's like, yeah.
It's like, oh, it looks like Santa had a little trouble with the fireplace.
But the pressure can get to you.
The pressure also because when they get smart enough to really be a good judge
of handwriting, because Santa often writes back to my kids.
I don't know if that happens.
But Santa's writing sometimes is, you know, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, it's like you have a grapho analysis in your house.
Particularly when you get around 10 years old.
They really start, you know.
Well, my son asks questions like, at what speed does your sleigh travel?
Oh, crap.
So then you put down, speed of light.
Speed of light.
That's good.
And that shut him up for a year.
Yeah.
Boy, you know, talking about childhood and stuff.
Now, this movie is one of those things that sounds like a great idea on paper.
But to actually execute it takes a remarkable amount of courage and vision and
logistical planning, for God's sakes.
And patience.
I mean, the thing that's unbelievable, to make a movie, we shot this movie over
12 years.
And so the idea is...
This has never been done, hasn't it?
It's never been done.
And the idea is to make a movie about growing up and to really, you know, chronicle
the first moment when you first kind of remember things, 6th grade, 1st grade
through 12th grade.
Right?
I don't want to give away the ending, but it ends when he graduates high school.
You know.
Okay.
Mom's the word.
And so it was a little...
For the last 12 years, Patricia Arquette and I would have to call up this
director before we ever took a job and say,
Hey, listen, I'm thinking about taking this job.
Is that okay?
And we would...
It was a logistical nightmare.
Particularly, Patricia did that show, Medium, for years.
And she had it in her contract that they would let her out to do this movie.
And did he have going into it?
It's impossible to plan 12 years out, isn't it?
Because you don't know what's going to be current.
What's a 16-year-old?
When we started in 2002, we didn't know what a 16-year-old was.
We didn't know Lady Gaga was going to exist.
We did whole scenes about the McCain-Obama election, not knowing who was going
to win.
Right.
You know, so it's...
Well, I mean, it's exactly like life because one doesn't really know.
You don't really know what life holds for you.
So to fabricate it for the purpose of a movie is virtually impossible.
And you know, the funny thing, you can't contract somebody to do anything for
more than seven
years, right?
So none of us had contracts.
So if the kid decided he didn't want to do it anymore, the whole thing would
fall apart.
Did you...
When you got together, it was the production annually?
You would do something annually?
Yeah.
It wasn't like same time next year because we didn't want it to be set in one
season.
So some years it'd be four months and then we wouldn't do it for nine months
and then
we'd wait 13 months.
And how...
When you actually got together for that session, how long would you film?
We would usually rehearse for two to three days.
We'd meet together because, you know, you had to see where the kids were at in
their lives.
What was happening to them?
What were they thinking about?
What were they caring about?
And match that with what we wanted.
You know, the director, Richard Linklert, had this theory that we all get
dragged through
our parents' lives.
That really, you don't have a lot of agency when you're a kid.
You know, if your mother has a terrible marriage, then your home life, through
no responsibility
of your own, turns into a nightmare, right?
So basically, we figured out the arc of the father and the mother's lives and
then just
dragged the kids through it.
Well, yeah, I'd never heard it expressed that way, but do you subscribe to that
theory?
That your kids are just dragged through their parents' lives?
Well, it sounds...
Is that working in your house like that?
Well, what I mean is that there are things that are major events in their lives
that they
don't really get a vote on.
No, they have no control.
It's unavoidable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you decide to move, you get a new job.
Right.
You know, when my father moved to Indianapolis, that was a huge deal.
The whole family had been from Texas, and everybody doesn't get a vote on that.
That's his career.
And he has to use, you know, with my stepmother, they have to use good judgment
for all of us.
But in my case, they did.
But in this movie, not always.
Yeah.
Boy, that's a scary thought, that you're just dragging your kids through your
life.
But I think it's probably accurate.
Well, until they have their own...
Now I feel like a dope, for God's sake.
You know, because you worry about everything on your kid's behalf.
Every breath they take concerns you.
And now, it may be just out of his control, out of my control.
Well, look, when my mother came...
When Maya was born, my oldest, I remember my mother came to the hospital, and
she said,
well, congratulations.
You now have something to worry about for the rest of your life.
And that's certainly been the truth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
And I...
I mean, that's all I do, is worry.
I mean, a full throttle worry.
Is it less worry when you have four?
Or four times the worry?
I think it's four times the worry.
I really...
I'd like...
There also is four times the love, you know?
Four times the joy.
There's four times...
I mean, I've gotten to teach...
You know, I've done three journeys now of teaching someone to ride a bike,
which is some of the most fun I've ever had in my life.
And we've done it in the same parking lot that we go to.
And my youngest isn't there yet.
It's not like I'm going to deny her the experience.
Don't worry.
You know?
But...
So, yeah, it's three...
Yes.
More work.
See, now, you mentioned teaching the kids how to ride a bike.
And immediately, you saying that, it coalesces in my head.
I remember exactly when and where and the days leading up to it
and the moment when it took off, when he took off.
And it's a lovely thing.
So, you have four of those.
That's great.
Yeah.
Now, the movie...
The other thing about the movie, in fact, it is 12 years long.
Of course, yeah.
We felt if we could dedicate 12 years, you should, too.
Put aside a little time.
If you can.
It's very popular in prisons.
Um...
Number one prison film of all time.
Uh, what are we going to see here, Ethan, from Boyhood?
I think this is a scene where, you know, you might know this moment when, uh,
you're picking
up your kids.
Well, it's a divorced family, and so he's picking up his kids for the weekends,
and he's trying
to connect with them and hear about how their lives are going. And they are
resisting.
Okay. Take a look. Boyhood.
There you go.
Boyhood, ladies and gentlemen. Ethan Hawke.
Good luck. Happy New Year.
Come back again, sir.
Thanks for having me.
Yes, sir. We'll be right back with Alison Williams, everybody.