00:00My name is Ethan Hawke and this is Betty Gilpin, and we are here for Wired's auto-complete interview
00:09This fills my heart with terror. We'll do it together
00:17What is Ethan Hawke's new movie? Well the last movie I had that came out is called The Weight
00:22and it happens to be a killer movie and I really want you to see it. It's kind of a
00:25throwback to
00:26an old-school kind of action movie where it's incredibly like bite-your-nails tense but it's
00:31not effects driven. It's characters you care about with the temperature turned up really high.
00:37What age was Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise? Ethan Hawke was 24 years old.
00:43When you look back at your 24-year-old self, do you see anything that you hadn't quite figured out
00:47as an actor yet? What are you kidding? I hadn't figured anything out. I mean the wonderful thing
00:54about youth and being young is you have all this confidence and no reason for it. I was learning
01:00so much every day on that movie. I was really lucky because the film is so dialogue driven and young
01:09actors often can have an obsession about lines and about speaking. We just had to talk non-stop and
01:17it's like running with 50 pounds in your back or something. The films I did immediately after that
01:23were so easy. I just re-watched the movie on a plane like a couple weeks ago and even at
01:2824 you
01:29were using that confidence to be curious and not to pose and I think that's very rare and one of
01:35the
01:36myriad reasons why you're one of our finest actors, Ethan Hawke. What was Ethan Hawke's best movie?
01:42The best movie I ever made is one I'm going to make next year. A specific one you have in
01:50mind? No. Oh, okay.
01:52Jesus. I thought we're done. Okay, here we go. Where did Betty Gilpin grow up? I grew up here in
02:01New York
02:01City in the South Street Seaport. Really? Like on one of those boats? No, it was down on Front Street.
02:09Nice. One of those cobblestone streets. Yeah, in an old ice factory. Who is Betty Gilpin in Widow's Bay?
02:18I play Sarah Warren. It's a surprise flashback episode and when we filmed it I had only been given
02:23the pilot script so I knew just as much as people watching it. I have to say as the host
02:29of this show
02:30you're awesome in that performance. Thank you. In what specific way? Take your time.
02:34What is Betty Gilpin best known for? Maybe Glow, but... I would say as your fan and co-patriot
02:43recently it's all about Widow's Bay. Yes, yeah. That one really hit the water cooler zeitgeist.
02:49Usually I like to do obscure miniseries on streaming networks no one has. What was Betty Gilpin's
02:55breakout role? Breakout role. Well, I was a dead body with your friend Vincent D'Onofrio
03:00and Law & Order Criminal Intent and then the next year... Is that like the first time you got a
03:05part
03:05where you're like, yes I got this part? Yes, yes. I think I joined SAG from that job. I was
03:11Fran
03:12Drescher's daughter and I had like one Alive line and then gunshot wound to the neck naked in an oil
03:18barrel. I think if that happened as much in real life as it happens on TV the world would be
03:23uninhabitable. Yes, yeah. And I rode the subway home with my fake bullet hole in my neck and no one
03:28cared at all. Nobody cared at all. Shrieked. Okay. What car does Ethan Hawke drive in boyhood?
03:39I drive a GTO and it happens to be the same GTO from Dazed and Confused. Wow. All right,
03:47which a lot of people don't know and it's Rick's GTO. Wow. Some of the most fun I ever had
03:52filming
03:52was with those young people driving around Austin and Rick's GTO and Rick's daughter and Ella Coltrane
03:59and we had so much fun. That was the purest, the purest film I ever made. Wow. It was like
04:09a friend
04:09inviting you over to say, hey we're going to do this really cool mural on my garage and you help
04:15him with it and then you go to the Academy Awards with the mural that you made in his garage.
04:19It's like,
04:19what? That doesn't make any sense. What is Ethan Hawke filming in Austin? I think you know the answer
04:25to that one. I do, I do. Season two of The Lowdown. It is a show that we were both
04:31in that we had a
04:32really good time working together and we highly recommend for your viewing pleasure should you
04:37choose to spend time watching television. I really think you might be glad. It is really good.
04:43What is Ethan Hawke doing these days? Working and promoting.
04:49Okay. Can Betty Gilpin sing? I can't imagine a world in which you cannot sing. I have I would
04:55say a total B plus coffee shop voice and there are so many A plus mezzanine voices that let's let
05:03the A pluses do the A pluses. Is Betty Gilpin in Death by Light? I am. I had a lovely
05:11time doing that
05:12filmed in Budapest. My second daughter was nine weeks old. It was wild. Nine weeks? Yeah. It was crazy.
05:18I've done a lot of period pieces and those clothes were designed to have women sit down and await
05:25visitors and someone to come buy, exchange a dowry for goats and not to work 14 hour days
05:34on set. So it's fun for like the first two hours and then you're like I'm done being immersed in
05:39this corset. Does Betty Gilpin? Does Betty Gilpin have Instagram? I have a private Instagram. It's just
05:49for my friends. So my rule is like no one that I would not text them a picture in real
05:55life and
05:55that's why we follow each other. Okay. Why was Ethan Hawke at Taylor Swift wedding? Okay. So I get a
06:04text
06:05from my daughter saying Taylor Swift wants your number. Can I give it to her? First of all how's
06:10my daughter like corresponding with Taylor Swift? That's its own question. I'm not allowed. I'm her
06:15father. I'm not allowed to like ask those kind of questions. Right. So I'm just like yeah sure.
06:19So it turns out Taylor Swift is a big Dead Poets Society fan and she wanted to do a little
06:23homage
06:24and so she invited Josh Charles and I into being in her video that she was directing and I think
06:30that
06:30she liked me and invited me to her wedding so I thought hell I'll go. And then the funny thing
06:35is
06:37everybody else like hired a car service to take them to the wedding. We took a cab. Yeah and I
06:43got
06:43my picture taken walking into the wedding like all these big stars are at the wedding and all over
06:47the internet if you want to see like weddings there's Ryan and I walking into the wedding because
06:52we're the only idiots who didn't have a car service. And we were filming in Tulsa till like 2 a
06:56.m. the night
06:56before. Remember that? You're very hip and with it. Yeah sure. Why is Ethan Hawke so short in Blue
07:02Moon? I'm playing Lorenz Hart and Lorenz Hart was around between 5 foot and 5 foot 2 and it's a
07:09big
07:09aspect of how he saw the world and how the world saw him and it was incredibly difficult to pull
07:15off
07:16but he is not a tall man and so I thought it was important to his character that I'd be
07:20a you know
07:20somewhere around six inches shorter. Why is Ethan Hawke in so many movies? So many movies.
07:27Because I love it. Yeah. It's just my favorite thing to do in the world. You know I remember
07:31having this thought when I was about I don't know in eighth grade where we played spin the bottle for
07:36the first time. It was the first time I ever kissed anybody. It's not really a kiss because it's like
07:40spin the bottle but I remember walking up thinking well that was incredible but that's probably going to
07:45get old right? I mean I'd like to do it five or six more times but I couldn't imagine wanting
07:49to do it
07:50for the rest of my life and you don't know it's never gets boring. No. It never never gets boring
07:56and it's so wonderful and that's kind of the way I feel about making movies. Each one has its
08:02possibility of being forever and being magical in some way and I'm also old and I've been doing it
08:11since I was 14 so they they keep adding on. Yeah but you've also always used your immense ability
08:18ability to explore and connect and not pose and climb and I think that makes spin the bottle
08:25feel new every time. Okay here we go. Glasses back on because I have to be able to read.
08:32Betty Gilpin lookalike. There's so many. I think this is probably about Jodie Comer. Do you know the
08:38actress Jodie Comer? I do. She's incredible. Rebecca Ferguson. These are both huge compliments
08:42to me but that's happened my whole life. People have said you look just like this girl I grew up
08:47with. It's just life is just humbling. I cannot tell you. The other day I was coming back from
08:53the premiere in Austin you know and everybody's telling me how great I am and how great the show
08:57was. And I step off the airplane and this like group of people go oh my god Kevin Bacon you
09:04are
09:05my favorite actor of all time. And I was like cool I'm not Kevin Bacon. Stop it. Yes you are.
09:12Right. Okay yeah thank you. Yes I am. Footloose was really difficult. It was a great experience.
09:19Betty Gilpin Christian Milioti. Christian Milioti one of my best friends. She is just such an incredible
09:25actor and we did a play together. It was a huge hit in London and kind of a bomb here
09:31and it just
09:32bonded us so much. Do you think that was because of your performance specifically or? Did I tank it?
09:38Yeah. Yes I think I was I was 23 years old and I definitely the solipsism of my self-loathing
09:48I still
09:49thought I as an actor had the power to make something good or bad by whether or not I felt
09:54good in a scene.
09:55So yeah I got to bring up trauma but I guess I thought it was my fault. We don't need
10:00to talk
10:00about that anymore. Betty Gilpin Broadway. What can we expect from you on Broadway? I don't know.
10:08I made my Broadway debut last year at O'Mary. Eight weeks of it. Betty Gilpin Emmy speech. People
10:16really liked your speech. Yes I wrote a I wrote a poem yes because I was afraid of sounding tone
10:24deaf or
10:26too reverent or I just yeah. The idea of people googling you fills my heart with fear because
10:34you know oftentimes it comes up how much is he worth? What did he why did he break up with
10:38that
10:38person? Why did he so bad and such and such? But I think the internet makes it seem like that
10:42very
10:42small percentage of people writing those questions are a lot more than they actually are. Well what
10:47you find out is most of them are 11. Right. And you're like oh.
