There are tough auditions, and then there’s walking into a room with Denzel Washington and realizing the script is basically a suggestion. Ethan Hawke says that was his Training Day trial by fire—the moment that set the tone for one of the great cop-movie duos of the 2000s, heck, best movies of the ‘00s, and landed him his first Oscar nomination.
The Before Sunrise star unpacked the story while accepting the Miami Film Festival’s Variety Virtuoso Award, in a wide-ranging chat that also touched on his nine-film collaboration with Richard Linklater, teaming with Taylor Swift on “Fortnight,” and a career-spanning 2025 movie schedule that includes Blue Moon, The Black Phone 2, The Lowdown, and a documetnary narration, which you can enjoy with an Apple TV subscription. The A-lister shared:
