Ethan Hawke reveals his Nicolas Cage obsession

The "Before Midnight" actor compares Cage to Marlon Brando

Published June 5, 2013 4:46PM (EDT)

During a Reddit AMA to promote his movies "Before Midnight" and "The Purge," actor Ethan Hawke revealed that he is "kind of obsessed" with Internet meme and occasional actor Nicolas Cage. He went so far as to compare him to Marlon Brando:

I'm kind of obsessed with Nic Cage. I just found out about /r/onetruegod too. He's the only actor since Marlon Brando that's actually done anything new with the art of acting; he's successfully taken us away from an obsession with naturalism into a kind of presentation style of acting that I imagine was popular with the old troubadours. If I could erase his bottom half bad movies, and only keep his top half movies, he would blow everyone else out of the water. He's put a little too much water in his beer, but he is still one of the great actors of our time. And working with him was an absolute pleasure. In fact, one of my favorite scenes I've ever done is the last scene in LORD OF WAR.

After single-handedly winning over every nerd on Reddit, Hawke also revealed that if he could "do anything without repercussions" he'd "become the world's biggest badass, most fierce environmental terrorist."

"I would make all the bastards who profit from destroying our planet regret the day they were born. Think natural-born vigilante," he wrote.

Hawke's AMA was fun, bright-eyed and delightful -- probably because he's entirely new to Reddit and thus still able to see it with some amusement and wonder that's lost on the initiated:

This is my first day of my life having any idea that this site even exists; I'm having a ball at the exact moment, and I don't know what I am going to do tomorrow. You could really do an interesting scene in a play based on reddit though...


By Prachi Gupta

Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com.

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Acting Before Midnight Celebrity Ethan Hawke Movies Nicolas Cage Reddit The Purge