Ethan Hawke isn’t the kind of guy who keeps a close eye on the stuff making its way down the catwalk in Europe. Just the opposite, in fact. “I’ve never had any awareness whatsoever of fashion,” he says. “But practical clothes that look cool, I love.”
Canada Goose built its reputation on practicality and functionality. That’s why it’s long been the on-set go-to for movies filmed in the cold or the wilderness. “There were years where, when people wanted to do a movie that took place in the snow, for some reason they cast me,” he says. One of those movies was Alive. Each morning, Hawke would take a helicopter to a glacier to film the story of a Uruguayan rugby team’s struggle to survive after crash-landing in the Andes. That’s where he was handed his first Canada Goose jacket—one he still has to this day.
It’s not exactly shocking, then, that the 54-year-old actor would eventually wind up working with the brand directly. He recently made his debut as the star of the campaign for Snow Goose by Canada Goose, the seasonal collection helmed by fashion designer Haider Ackermann, who joined the company as its first creative director in May of this year. (As part of the partnership, Canada Goose is donating $100,000 on Hawke’s behalf to Tapiriit Kanatami; the funds will assist in the building of Inuit Nunangat University.)
“The whole thing seemed interesting to me,” Hawke says. “The direction they were taking their organization and what they’re working on. And we came up with a plan to try to celebrate their new line and make it look good in the world.”
To mark the occasion, Hawke and I hopped on an intra-Brooklyn phone call—“oh, so we’re both staring at the same sky,” he quipped when I told him where I was dialing in from—to talk about the campaign, his morning meetups with fellow actors and friends like Bobby Cannavale, and what’s next for him on the acting front. Read on for a few highlights from our conversation.
“I was in White Fang and Alive and Snow Falling on Cedars and A Midnight Clear. There was a period of my life where it seemed that all filmmaking took place near or around glaciers. I think that’s when my awareness of [Canada Goose] started. When we did Alive, for example, we would take a helicopter every morning to a giant glacier. It was really one of the more intense film shoots of my life, and I learned everything about cold-weather gear. We got handed a Canada Goose jacket on that set that I still have.”
“I border on a hoarder. Anything I find that I like, I’ll wear until it absolutely dies. My kids make fun of me. I mean, I have T-shirts [seen in] paparazzi photos from me from the ’90s, and I’m still wearing them.”
“When I was a young actor, one of the first times I got to L.A., I had an audition for a part I didn’t get with Warren Beatty. I remember him talking about the value of consistency: If you are consistent with what you actually love, you will go in and out of style, but at least time will reflect well on you that you weren’t shape-shifting to the fads. You’re going to do just as well by being true to yourself as you would by trying to chase any kind of popularity. I always thought that was great advice.”
“It’s a fascinating experiment to force yourself to wear other characters’ clothes and realize how the way that you dress impacts your self-esteem and your awareness of yourself and your identity. As a species, we’re so judgmental about what people look like and what that telegraphs and communicates about who somebody is, and you realize by playing all these different characters how incredibly flexible that is and what a faulty line of judgment it really is, and how you can actually feel good in lots of different kinds of clothes.
“There are clothes you want to burn when you finish the character. On the other hand, when I did the film Gattaca, I wished I had the energy to dress like that my whole life. The design for that movie was so clean and elegant and classy, and it’s just beautiful. From the sets to the costumes, the design element of that movie really taught me, Wow, I would love to move through the world like this. It just requires a tremendous amount of effort.
“And then there’s other cases. I did this movie, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, and I just played a real schlep. Poor guy was so sad, a loser, and something about the outfits just telegraphed it, and I couldn’t wait for that job to be over. You really start to relate to this sad dog of a human being, and you can’t wait to shed their skin.”
“There’s a little Screen Actors Guild union meeting at various coffee shops in Brooklyn in the morning. It’s been a wonderful decade or so. It sounds corny, maybe. But when you’re in the arts and you feel like you’re a cat just trying to stay alive and keep working, it’s fun to meet other people who do the same thing and see them in their daily life. I mean, how they make their decisions, what they’re eating, what they’re thinking about. We have a great community, and it all revolves around coffee.
“Just yesterday I was walking my dogs and watching some kids play basketball and Bobby walked by with his kids and we talked for half an hour there and nobody bothered us. I don’t know if it’s because we lived here so long, but for example, I went to shoot in Toronto last week and I couldn’t walk down the street. I can’t quite figure out why that is, except for that people in New York are over it.”
“I love it. It’s Sterlin Harjo. I don’t know if people have seen Reservation Dogs, but for those who have, there was something about it. It felt … just the kind of filmmaking I absolutely love. It was authentic and serious and funny and unpretentious and about real people and about characters. It really gave me a shot of adrenaline watching it, that the landscape of television could be a place where you could really make something new, that it doesn’t have to be corporate, and that you can make something beautiful in the midst of all this, and Sterlin and that whole team really did it. I went down there and I had a cameo in I guess the penultimate episode or whatever and had one of the best times on a film set I’ve had in years.
“That whole community, they were having so much fun and they were making something they really believed in. I really wanted to work with Sterlin, and we started dreaming about this show, and now it’s happening. For me, it’s interesting; I’m 54 years old and I’ve never done this. I’ve never made a show, and so I’m making it with somebody I really admire and it has something to say. I’m really excited about it. We’re going down to Tulsa beginning of the year and going to try to come out with something worth watching.
“There’s also this movie, Blue Moon, with Bobby and directed by Richard Linklater that will come out next year. I’m pretty excited about that, too.”
