Focus Features

Ethan Hawke as Paul

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may," is a phrase a young Ethan Hawke took to heart while filming Dead Poets Society," the Academy Award-winning drama that launched his career as an actor. Twenty-five years and several Tony® and Oscar® nominations later, he has emerged a multifaceted artist, challenging himself as a novelist, screenwriter, and director.

Hawke was most recently seen in Robert Budreau’s Born To Be Blue, for which he received rave reviews out of the Toronto Film Festival for his depiction of legendary jazz trumpeter Chet Baker. Hawke’s film Maggie’s Plan, in which he stars opposite Greta Gerwig and Julianne Moore, also premiered at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, and will be released on May 20, 2016.

Hawke recently wrapped production on The Magnificent Seven, directed by Antoine Fuqua. The remake of the iconic film also stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Matt Bomer, and Peter Sarsgaard. The film will be released on September 23, 2016. He also recently filmed Blumhouse and Ti West's In A Valley Of Violence, which premieres at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival, as well as Noah Buschel's The Phenom.

Additionally, Hawke's graphic novel, Indeh, with illustrator Greg Ruth, will be published through Grand Central Publishing on June 7, 2016. Indeh captures the narrative of two nations at war who strive to find peace and forgiveness in a time of great upheaval.

Hawke recently made his documentary directorial debut with Seymour: An Introduction, which premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and also played at the New York Film Festival. The project follows the life of the legendary pianist and piano teacher Seymour Bernstein.

Hawke has collaborated with filmmaker Richard Linklater on multiple occasions, including Fast Food Nation; Walking Life; The Newton Boys and Tape. Their most recent collaboration, Boyhood, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Hawke starred alongside Patricia Arquette and Ellar Coltrane in the critically acclaimed film that was shot intermittently over 12 years chronicling the life of a child from age 6-18. For his performance, Ethan received Academy Award, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award, Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, Film Independent Spirit Award, Critics’ Choice Film Award, and Gotham Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

Marking another one of their celebrated projects, Hawke starred opposite Julie Delpy in the critically acclaimed film Before Sunrise and its two sequels Before Sunset and Before Midnight. The trio co-wrote the screenplays for Before Sunset and Before Midnight and received Academy Award and Independent Spirit Award nominations for both scripts. Hawke, Linklater and Delpy were honored with the Louis XIII Genius Award for achievement in cinematic works for the Before films at the BFCA Critics Choice Awards.

Tapping into the pop culture zeitgeist with Ben Stiller's 1994 comedy Reality Bites, Hawke has starred in over fifty films, including; Good Kill; Predestination; The Purge; Explorers; White Fang; Gattaca; Great Expectations; Hamlet; What Doesn’t Kill You; Brooklyn’s Finest; Sinister; and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead. Hawke received Academy Award and Screen Actors Guild Supporting Actor nominations for his work in Antoine Fuqua's Training Day, opposite Denzel Washington.

Behind the lens, Hawke made his directorial debut in 2001 with his drama Chelsea. The film tells five stories set in a single day at the Chelsea Hotel and stars Uma Thurman, Kris Kristofferson, Rosario Dawson, Natasha Richardson, and Steve Zahn. Additionally, he directed Josh Hamilton in the short film Straight To One, a story of a couple, young and in love, living in the Chelsea Hotel.

In late 2015, Hawke released his first children’s book Rules for a Knight through Knopf, which features illustrations by his wife, Ryan Hawke. The story is framed as a long-lost document, recently found and republished by Hawke, a distant relative of the knight, Sir Thomas Lemuel Hawke. In addition to his work as a novelist, in April 2009, Hawke wrote an in-depth and celebrated profile of icon Kris Kristofferson for Rolling Stone. In 2002, his second novel, Ash Wednesday, was published by Knopf and was chosen for Bloomsbury's contemporary classics series. In 1996, Hawke wrote his first novel, The Hottest State, published by Little Brown and now in its nineteenth printing. In his sophomore directorial endeavor, Hawke adapted for the screen and directed the on-screen version of The Hottest State and also directed a music video for the film, featuring Lisa Loeb.

At the age of twenty-one, Hawke founded the Malaparte Theater Co., which remained open for more than five years giving young artists a home to develop their craft. The next year, in 1992, Hawke made his Broadway debut in The Seagull. Additionally, he has appeared in Henry IV alongside Richard Easton on Broadway; Buried Child (Steppenwolf); Hurlyburly, for which he earned a Lucille Lortel Award Nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor and Drama League Award Nomination for Distinguished Performance (The New Group); Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, for which he was honored with a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play and Drama League Award nomination for Distinguished Performance (Lincoln Center); the inaugural season of The Bridge Project's double billings of The Cherry Orchard and A Winter's Tale, which garnered Hawke a Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Old Vic); and Blood From A Stone (The New Group) which earned him a 2011 Obie Award for Performance. In 2007, Hawke made his Off-Broadway directing debut with the world premiere of Jonathan Marc Sherman's dark comedy, Things We Want. In 2010, Hawke directed Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind, for which he received a Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play as well as recognition in the New York Times and The New Yorker top ten lists of the leading theatre productions in 2010. In 2012, he starred in Chekov's Ivanov for the Classic Stage Company. In 2013, he directed and starred in Clive, a stage adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Baal, by Jonathan Marc Sherman (The New Group), and completed a successful run of Lincoln Center Theatre's production of Macbeth in the title role.