By Today I sat down with Ethan Hawke to talk about his new psychological drama, The Woman in the Fifth. Inevitably I had to ask about the long-brewing sequel to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Though he obviously didn’t go into plot details, Hawke did say the sequel was 95% likely to shoot this summer, and it sounded like the story was in place and ready to go.
“Richard [Linklater] asked Julie [Delpy] and I to sit and watch them both again last year to see if we thought we had it in us to do another one,” Hawke said. “And I thought very clearly that when the second one ends that they’re really just not over. It needs some resolution of some kind, and so I’m excited to try.”
He later added, “We had a big week-long workshop last Christmas and we realized, ‘All right, we’re ready, we’ve got it.’ We’ve all had so many things happen to us and we’re ready to write about them.”
After the cut is the part of the interview where we talk about the Before Sunset sequel. Tomorrow we’ll look at another project Hawke’s been working on with Richard Linklater, the highly ambitious Boyhood. It’s a movie being shot over the course of 12 years, with two more years of shooting left to go. Look for the full interview with Ethan Hawke on Wednesday.
And of course there’s the sequel to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
It’s like in the 95% category that we’re going to film that this summer.
Interesting.
Yeah. So, it’s been nine years between the first one and number two, and it’s nine years again. [laughs]
Sort of like the Up [documentary] series. [laughs]
I guess. I mean, obviously it’s becoming clear that Linklater’s obsessed with time and that a lot of his movies actually deal with our relationship with time. When we made the first movie, I remember at the wrap party talking about how fun it would be if we made five of these movies, where you did [one for the] twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, you know?
That life progression.
You could write a magnum opus about love over a lifetime. And we’re just taking it one step at a time. You know, the hard thing about the third one is… [With] the second one, no one was really paying attention–nobody ever expected the sequel, it took people absolutely by surprise that we even made one. Before Sunrise is the lowest-grossing film of all time to ever garner a sequel. But, yeah, there’s a struggle with the fact that people have expectations. Yeah, [sigh]: “I want this to happen,” “Oh, they can’t be together,” “Oh they should be together,” “Oh, if this happens it’d be stupid.” We’re all really proud of those movies and we don’t want to ruin them. At the same time… [a beat] I watched them both. Richard asked Julie and I to sit and watch them both again last year to see if we thought we had it in us to do another one, and I thought very clearly that when the second one ends that they’re really just not over. It needs some resolution of some kind, and so I’m excited to try.
The best part about that second movie is that it ends at a perfect spot but there’s obviously more story.
That movie can’t go on, but, you know, you’re like, “But wait a second…”
Yeah. [laughs]
I think the truth is we’ve got a good crew, we’ve got a good hit on it. It took us nine years to come up with what the hit is, but we got it! [laughs]
If it gestates into a good thing–
Uh-huh, exactly.
–that time was a wonderful thing.
And Richard didn’t want to be careful with the exact years. He didn’t care if it was 13 years or nine, as long as the movie’s good. We had this little realization. We had a big week-long workshop last Christmas and we realized, “All right, we’re ready, we’ve got it.” We’ve all had so many things happen to us and we’re ready to write about them.
