Ethan Hawke has had a very fruitful relationship with director Richard Linklater. First teaming up with the director on Before Sunrise, a film whose subsequent sequels earned both Hawke and Linklater Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, Boyhood marks the seventh film the pair have worked on together. Given the fact the film took twelve years to make, it was undoubtedly one of the most involved collaborations the two have ever worked on as well. However herculean of a task the film was to pull off though, it appears to be paying off in spades for both the actor and the director given the amount of awards kudos the two are reaping in. Hawke plays a character simply known as Dad, and as reductive as that role may sound, it provides Hawke with possibly the best role of his career. A mostly absent parent at the film's opening, Hawke's character really grows into his position as a father figure as the film progresses, for as much as Boyhood is about the maturation process from childhood to adulthood, the film is just as interesting a study in the evolution of parenting over the lifetime of a child. As Hawke's character becomes more of an actual adult himself, his connection to his children strengthens and his love for them becomes all the more apparent. What makes this probably the best performance of Hawke's career though is how natural this transformation occurs. There is never an "a-ha" moment of realization, but rather a gradual fitting into the role of a caring father that is always clearly present, even in the earliest, most insecure days of Hawke's character, but not always obvious. Hawke has been once previously nominated as actor, for his role in Training Day, but don't expect any "he's overdue" narrative to propel Hawke to Oscar glory. As much as Boyhood has been beloved by critics and Hawke's performance has been praised, the only actor from the film with hope of walking away with an Oscar is Hawke's parenting counterpart, Patricia Arquette. Hawke's reward is the nomination itself - this year's Best Supporting Actor Oscar is undoubtedly a two-man race, and the man currently bringing up the rear in this mano a mano battle is...
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
