Ethan Hawke & Betty Gilpin Answer The Web’s Most Searched Questions

My name is Ethan Hawke, and this is.

Betty Gilpin.

And we are here for WIRED's.

[Both] Autocomplete. [buttons clicking]

Interview.

[bright music]

This fills my heart with terror.

[laughing] We'll do it together.

[bright music]

What is Ethan Hawke's

[sticker ripping] new movie?

Well, the last movie I had that came out

was called The Weight,

and it happens to be a killer movie,

and I really want you to see it.

It's kind of a throwback

to an old-school kind of action movie

where it's incredibly like bite your nails tense,

but it's not effects driven.

It's characters you care about

with the temperature turned up really high.

[Betty] What age was Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise?

Ethan Hawke was 24 years old.

[person laughing]

[Interviewer] When you look back at your 24-year-old self,

do you see anything that you hadn't quite figured out

as an actor yet?

What are you kidding?

[Betty laughing] I hadn't figured anything out.

I mean, the wonderful thing about youth

and being young is you have all this confidence

and no reason for it.

I was learning so much every day on that movie.

I was really lucky because the film is so dialogue driven

and young actors often can have an obsession about lines.

And about speaking and we just had to talk nonstop

and it's like running with 50 pounds on your back

or something.

The films I did immediately after that were so easy.

I just rewatched the movie on a plane a couple weeks ago.

And even at 24, you were using that confidence

to be curious and not to pose.

And I think that's very rare

and one of the myriad reasons

why you're one of our finest actors, Ethan Hawke.

What was Ethan Hawke's best movie?

The best movie I ever made

is one I'm gonna make next year.

A specific one you have in mind?

No. Oh, okay.

[cards flopping]

Jesus, I thought we were done.

Okay, here we go.

Where did Betty Gilpin

[sticker peeling]

grow up?' Grow up.

I grew up here in New York City

in the South Street Seaport.

Really?

Yeah. On one of those boats?

No, it was down on Front Street.

Nice. One of those

cobblestone streets, yeah.

It's pretty. In an old ice factory.

[Ethan] Who is Betty Gilpin in?

[Both] Widow's Bay?

I play Sarah Warren.

It's a surprise flashback episode.

And when we filmed it, I had only been given

the pilot script, so I knew just as much

as people watching it.

I have to say, as the host of this show, you're awesome

in that performance. Thank you.

In what specific way?

Take your time.

[Ethan] What is Betty Gilpin

[sticker peeling]

best known for?

Maybe Glow, but.

I would say as your fan and co-patriot,

recently it is all about Widow's Bay.

Yes. Yeah. That one really hit the water cooler zeitgeist.

Usually I like to do obscure mini series

on streaming networks no one has.

[Ethan] What was Betty Gilpin's breakout

role? Breakout role.

Well, I was a dead body with your friend Vincent D'Onofrio.

Aha. In Law and Order:

Criminal Intent

And then the next year. Was that the first time

you got a part where you were like, Yes, I got this part.

Yes, yes.

I think I joined SAG from that job.

I was Fran Drescher's daughter and I had one alive line

and then gunshot wound to the neck, naked in an oil barrel.

I think if that happened as much in real life

as it happens on TV.

Yes. The world would be

uninhabitable.

Yes. Yeah. And I rode the subway home

with my fake bullet hole in my neck and no one cared at all.

Nobody cared about it. No.

Yeah.

Shweet.

Okay.

What car

[Ethan whistling] does Ethan Hawke

[sticker peeling]

drive in Boyhood?

I drive a GTO and it happens to be the same GTO

from Dazed and Confused.

Wow.

All right, which a lot of people don't know.

And it's Rick's GTO. Wow, wow.

Some of the most fun I ever had filming

was with those young people driving around Austin

in Rick's GTO and Rick's daughter and Ellar Coltrane

and we had so much fun.

That was the purest,

the purest film I ever made.

It was like a friend inviting you over to say,

Hey, we're gonna do this really cool mural

on my garage.

And you help him with it.

And then you go to the Academy Awards

with the mural that you made his garage.

It's like, What? [Betty laughing]

That doesn't make any sense.

What is Ethan Hawke [sticker ripping]

filming in Tulsa? I think you know

the answer to that one. I do, I do.

Season two of The Lowdown.

It is a show that we were both in,

that we had a really good time working together,

and we highly recommend for your viewing pleasure,

should you choose to spend time watching television,

I really think you might be glad.

It is really good.

What is Ethan Hawke [sticker peeling]

doing these days?

Working and promoting.

[cards flopping]

Okay.

Can Betty Gilpin sing?

I. I can't imagine

a world in which you

cannot sing. I have I would say

a total B+ coffee shop voice

and there are so many A+ mezzanine voices that,

let's let the A pluses do the [mumbling].

Is Betty Gilpin

[sticker peeling] 'in Death by Lightning?

I am.

I had a lovely time doing that.

Filmed in Budapest.

My second daughter was nine weeks old.

It was wild. Nine weeks?

Yeah, it was crazy.

I've done a lot of period pieces

and those clothes were designed to have women sit down

and await visitors and someone to come by,

exchange a dowry for goats

and not to work 14 hour days [laughing] on set.

So it's fun for the first two hours

and then you're like,

I'm done being immersed in this corset.

Does Betty Gilpin?

Does Betty Gilpin

[both humming]

have Instagram? Have Instagram.

I have a private Instagram.

It's just for my friends.

So my rule is no one that I would not text them

a picture in real life, and that's why we follow each other.

[card flopping]

Okay.

Why was Ethan Hawke [sticker ripping]

at Taylor Swift wedding?

Okay, so I get a text from my daughter

saying, Taylor Swift, wants your number?

Can I give it to her?

First of all, how's my daughter corresponding

with Taylor Swift?

That's its own question. Coolest

person ever. I'm not allowed,

I'm her father, I'm not allowed to ask

those kind of questions.

Right. So I'm just like,

Yeah, sure.

So it turns out Taylor Swift is a big Dead Poets Society

fan and she wanted to do a little homage.

And so she invited Josh Charles and I

into being in her video that she was directing.

And I think that she liked me and invited me to her wedding.

So I thought, Hell, I'll go.

And then the funny thing is everybody else

hired a car service to take them to the wedding.

We took a cab.

And I got my picture taken walking in the wedding,

all these big stars are at the wedding

and all over the internet.

If you wanna see weddings. Yeah, yeah.

There's Ryan and I walking into the wedding

'cause we're the only idiots who didn't have a car service.

And we were filming in Tulsa 'til 2:00 AM

the night before, remember that?

You're very hip and with it.

[Ethan] Yeah, sure.

Why is Ethan Hawke [sticker ripping]

so short in Blue Moon?

I'm playing Lorenz Hart and Lorenz Hart was around

between five foot and five foot two

and it's a big aspect of how he saw the world

and how the world saw him.

And it was incredibly difficult to pull off,

but he is not a tall man.

And so I thought it was important to his character

that I be somewhere around six inches shorter.

Why is Ethan Hawke? [sticker peeling]

In so many movies? So many movies.

Because I love it.

Yeah. It's just

my favorite thing to do in the world.

I remember having this thought when I was about,

I don't know, in eighth grade,

where we played Spin the Bottle for the first time.

It was the first time I ever kissed anybody.

It's not really a kiss 'cause it's Spin the Bottle.

But I remember walking home thinking,

Well, that was incredible,

but that's probably gonna get old, right?

I mean, I'd like to do it five or six more times,

but I couldn't imagine wanting to do it

for the rest of my life. Yeah.

And you don't know, it never gets boring.

No. It never, never gets boring.

And it's so wonderful.

And that's kind of the way I feel about making movies.

Each one has its possibility of being forever

and being magical in some way.

And I'm also old and I've been doing it since I was 14,

so they keep adding up.

Yeah, but you've also always used your immense ability

to explore and connect and not pose and climb.

And I think that makes Spin the Bottle feel new every time.

Okay, here we go, glasses back on

because I have to be able to read.

Betty Gilpin look alike.

There's so many.

I think this is probably about Jodie Comer.

Do you know the actress

Jodie Comer? I do.

She's incredible.

Rebecca Ferguson.

These are both huge compliments to me,

but that's happened my whole life.

People have said,

You look just like this girl I grew up with or.

Life is just humbling.

I cannot tell you. Yeah.

The other day I was coming back from the premiere

in Austin and everybody's telling me how great I am

and how great the show is and all this.

And I step off the airplane and this group of people go,

Oh my God, Kevin Bacon, you are my favorite actor

of all time. [Betty laughing]

And I was like,

Cool. I'm not Kevin Bacon.

Stop it, yes, you are.

Right. And you're like

Okay. Yeah.

Thank you. Yes, I am.

Footloose was really difficult.

[Betty laughing] It was a great experience.

[sticker peeling]

Betty Gilpin, Cristin Milioti.

Cristin Milioti, one of my best friends.

She is just such an incredible actor.

And we did a play together.

It was a huge hit in London and then kind of a bomb here

and it just bonded us so much.

Do you think that was because of your performance

specifically or?

Did I tank it?

Yeah.

Yes. I think I was, God, was I 23 years old?

And I definitely, the solipsism of my self-loathing,

I still thought I as an actor had the power

to make something good or bad

by whether or not I felt good in a scene.

So yeah. Okay.

Not to bring up trauma, but yes,

I thought it was my fault. All right, we don't need

to talk about that anymore. I love you, Crispin.

[Ethan] Betty Gilpin.

Broadway. Broadway.

What can we expect from you on Broadway?

[laughing] I don't know.

I made my Broadway debut last year

at Oh Mary!, eight weeks of it.

Betty Gilpin. [sticker peeling]

Emmy speech. Emmy's speech.

People really liked your speech.

Yes. I wrote a poem.

Yes, 'cause I was afraid of sounding tone deaf

or too reverent or I just, yeah.

[paper flapping]

The idea of people Googling you fills my heart with fear

'cause oftentimes it comes up, how much is he worth?

Why did he break up with that person?

Why did he so bad in such and such?

But I think the internet makes it seem like

that very small percentage of people writing those questions

are a lot more than they actually are.

Well, what you find out is most of them are 11.

Right. [both laughing]

And you're like, oh. [upbeat music]