Why Ethan Hawke asked George Clooney to give voice to Paul Newman in The Last Movie Stars doc
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Movie star gives good movie star.
That was the idea in Ethan Hawke's head when he first approached George Clooney to be the "voice" of Paul Newman in his new documentary, The Last Movie Stars.
Clooney is one of many actors and creatives featured in the documentary, which explores the lives, careers, and love affair of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward over six episodes. Taken from interview transcripts compiled by Newman and friend Stewart Stern, the documentary has current stars read aloud the words of Newman, Woodward, and their contemporaries.
"George Clooney was the first person I thought of who might have insight to some of the things that Paul was going through," Hawke, who directed the documentary, tells EW. "To have a sustained excellence at that level for that long — George knows what it's like to put yourself out politically when you're viewed iconically; the troubles that come with a public life; how to use it well. I thought he might have some insight to it. And as it turned out, he's a huge Paul Newman fan. He met him a few times. He really wanted to do it."
Hawke's documentary is a unique amalgam of interviews with Newman and Woodward's children and grandchildren, conversations with current actors and creatives about the impact of the two stars, and acted-out transcripts and footage from Newman and Woodward's films and TV interviews.
Premiering July 21 on HBO Max, the documentary, which Newman and Woodward's daughters commissioned Hawke to make, gives viewers unprecedented insight into the two stars' lives, the ups and downs of their legendary marriage, and the ways in which their private struggles fed their work. It uses extensive transcripts from Newman's unfinished memoir, which will finally be released this fall.
We caught up with Hawke ahead of the doc's premiere to talk about his offbeat approach to the material, what he learned from his research process, and more.
Silver Screen Collection/Getty; Todd Owyoung/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Paul and Joanne's family came to you with this project. Did you get a sense of why they felt you were the right person for the job?
ETHAN HAWKE: Well, I tried asking, and the sense I got was that their parents are famous celebrities. And the more time goes by, the more they just become celebrities. I think they were really hoping that an actor would direct this because what their life was focused on was the performing arts and that perhaps an actor would bring interest in that. I made one other documentary that they liked, and there aren't that many actors who've made a documentary. So I guess that's why they thought of me. I am so glad they did. But I remember my first conversation with them, telling them all the people I thought should direct it.
Right, because you didn't have a personal connection to Newman or Woodward, the way someone like say Allison Janney did. So you were starting from scratch almost.
I guess they saw that as a positive. That I would look at it like a journalist, with love. I obviously have dedicated my life to the same thing they dedicated their life to. But even then, I don't know, I think like, "Wow, maybe they should have had Allison Janney do it." They lived such big lives that there's a lot of different angles a person could take on their life, you know? And I just did mine, and I hope they're happy with it.
What made you say yes to it?
I couldn't get the word "no" out of my mouth. I really wanted to. I knew that this project would hijack my brain. You can lose yourself making a documentary. Martin Scorsese is our executive producer, and he said to me, "The bottom line is at some point, you just have to put the pencils down. It's never as good as it should be; could be. But at some point, you're going to have to go back to learning lines and get back to your day job." It's like a kid's painting; at some point, you got to take it away before they ruin it. That's what happened to me.
How did you devise this approach to have contemporary actors reading these transcripts and interweaving your conversations with them?
I just let the river take me. I didn't have a plan to do this. It started pretty simple. There's so much on them already. The thing that the family had that was absolutely unique was this abandoned memoir. Now, unfortunately, I didn't have the audio tapes. So then I thought, "Well, actually, Ethan, I'm an actor. Why can't we reenact these interviews?" And then it might have two layers, which are the words they're saying, but also, we're making a portrait of actors, shouldn't it have acting in it? And then it started to be really fun to talk to fellow actors about Paul and Joanne. And I started cutting in these Zoom calls with no intention of using them. Just as placeholders. Like, "Well, a lot of people don't know who Gore Vidal is; I'll just include Brooks Ashmanskas and I talking about Gore Vidal." Then I started realizing that that was more interesting; that it became one generation thinking about the other as opposed to some Wikipedia page: "Gore Vidal was born, and blah blah blah." I let the film talk to me. I started cutting things together. And I went, "Well, that's interesting," and I kept building on it.
How did you choose who would read who?
I followed my gut a little bit. Laura Linney was an obvious choice. Laura is an actor's actor like Joanne. I did my Broadway debut with Laura, and I knew that Joanne was her great mentor. So I had those things in the back of my mind. Zoe Kazan is Elia Kazan's granddaughter, and Elia was Paul's great mentor. LaTanya Richardson was directed by Joanne. I worked with her, and I also know, "Well, she's been married to Sam Jackson. She's from Georgia. She would know something about Joanne Woodward that might be interesting." I kept trying to follow my nose. Brooks Ashmanskas is one of my funniest friends, and I knew that he would just do a perfect Gore Vidal imitation, and he does. Sometimes they were just my friends — Billy Crudup, Sam Rockwell, Vincent D'Onofrio. These are guys who I enjoy talking about movies with and talking about acting with. They're old friends, and we've all learned about acting together. So, it's just fun to talk to them about this project and hear things that they had to say.
This is a staggering amount of work, melding together your zoom interviews with talk show appearances, the transcripts, and their acting work. How did you cull through all that and figure out how to piece it together?
It broke my brain. Their life is most interesting when you see it in total. There are certain kinds of people where it's like, "Oh, I want to talk about when they recorded that one album — that was the definitive moment that captured the beauty." What's revelatory about them is the 50-year love affair. It's these great careers in the context of a 50-year love affair. That's what makes it so remarkable. I had one game I played with myself that led to how this was developed, which is I watched all their movies. I know for myself that there's always some secret reason why I wanted to do a movie. It might be one line; it might be one scene. But why do I want to play that part? So I watched their movies thinking, "Why did they want to do this movie?" And then you'd start to see it. "Oh, here's a scene where he's getting divorced. And oh, here's a scene with a troubled son. I know why she wanted to play this part." I could start to see their life in their acting.
Then I would try to marry those images with things that were being talked about in the transcript. I'll give you an example. I was looking at Cool Hand Luke and the heart of Cool Hand Luke, for some strange reason, is Jo Van Fleet's performance and this tough guy whose mother dies. I started thinking, "Well, what is Paul's relationship with his mother?" Then you start to see — the famous line, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." I'm like, "Oh, I think I might know what he was talking about when he said that line, what might have been going on in his mind if he just kicked his mom out of his car on 11th Street, and he's talking to a parental figure." I let the actor part of my brain [take over]. I know when I say lines, I have to try to fuel it with something personal. So I kept trying to think, "What are they fueling this with?" And I would find the connections.
What did you learn about Paul and Joanne, both as individuals and as a couple, that really surprised you?
There were many, many things that surprised me along the way. One is their passion for each other. They were lovers. When you see that iconic couple, you can think, "Oh, that's just mom and dad," but the more you dug deep, you realize, "Oh, these people were deeply engaged in a love affair." And that was powerful. The other element was how funny they both were. They're both just outrageously funny, and they had a wit to them that helped keep them sane.
The unfinished memoir that provides so much of your interview material is being published later this year. Do you have any involvement with it?
No, I keep expecting them to ask me too. I'm the only other person that's read all this stuff. But I've also been extremely busy. It's a lot of material, I'm telling you. I didn't even use the transcript with his brother, which is its own documentary. It's a 200-page interview. It's just another movie, you know?
Do you feel like you're going to take up lessons learned from their lives now, either in your personal or professional life?
I wonder. It'll be really interesting what I say about this experience in 15 years. Right now, I'm so glad to be done. It really is like jumping off a high dive or something. You don't know if you're going to die when you land. I got offered this job before my 50th birthday, and it seemed like an amazing thing to do right at 50 — to stop for a second and meditate on two people who did it on the highest level. I learned a lot about my own gender bias. I learned a lot about seeing this industry from a female point of view. How hard that was for Joanne. You see what's positive about the past. You see what's negative about the past. I don't think Paul Newman ever worked with a female director. All those movies, not one woman. The only female director Joanne ever worked with was herself. Joanne walked a much rougher path, and she did it with grace and intelligence and wit and a ferocity that I really admire.
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