By Gill Pringle
Based on a short story of the same name written by Stephen King’s son and accomplished horror writer in his own right, Joe Hill, The Black Phone follows a 13-year-old boy who is abducted and locked in a soundproof basement. Terrified, he begins receiving calls on a disconnected phone from the killer’s previous victims, all intent on making sure the boy – Mason Thames making his big screen debut as Finney – does not follow them to the grave.
Playing against type, Ethan Hawke portrays the sadistic serial killer known as “The Grabber”. Barely recognizable beneath his sinister masks, the actor breathes pure malevolence into the role of a twisted, failed magician. Former child actor Ethan Hawke, now 51, made his breakthrough appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society, starring opposite Robin Williams. A reluctant heart throb, he would pursue a diverse career, equally embracing drama, action and romance, as well as directing three feature films (Chelsea Walls, The Hottest State, Blaze), three plays and two documentaries (Seymour: An Introduction, the upcoming The Last Movie Stars TV series), and penning four novels (A Bright Ray Of Darkness, Rules For A Knight, Ash Wednesday, The Hottest State). As a father-of-four (including eldest daughter, Stranger Things actress Maya Hawke, from his former marriage to Uma Thurman), playing a child killer was never on Hawke’s bucket list until The Black Phone director Scott Derrickson persuaded him to change his mind. After a career spanning four decades, the four-time Oscar nominee tells FilmInk why he was finally ready to get really, really nasty.
We’ve seen you play villains in Sinister and, more recently, as Arthur Harrow in Marvel’s Moon Knight mini-series…why were you hesitant to accept the role of The Grabber in The Black Phone?
“I don’t mind playing flawed or unlikeable characters, but once an audience sees an overtly evil character, they can’t un-see it, and it changes the way they relate to you.”
But the script changed your mind, in particular the relationship between the young brother and sister, Finney and Gwen?
“I thought it was special because, yes, it’s a scary movie, but it has a heart of gold. That, coupled with the fact that I really wanted to work with Scott [Derrickson] again, made it an easy decision.”
How does The Grabber justify what he does?
“Some part of The Grabber’s soul has been so eroded that he can justify doing things that most of us can’t even think about. It’s hard to play that level of malevolency because it’s impossible to justify.”
As a father in real life, playing The Grabber must have felt uncomfortable at times?
“Yes, but one of the things that I love about the movie is, it’s kind of about how the adult world is not really taking care of these young people. The Grabber is absolutely malevolent, but the rest of their world is not so welcoming either. And the story is not really about The Grabber. It’s about this young man and this young woman and their love for each other. Setting a horror movie as a coming of age story also felt fresh and original to me. And there’s something healing about the idea that we can take care of ourselves, and we can take care of other people. Despite these evil forces of the world, I think part of the trick to a hero’s journey is to stop seeing yourself as a victim. And that’s the story of the movie. So what I love about the movie is not The Grabber but these young people. And my performance is in service of them.”
During your career, you’ve played many multifaceted characters, especially with recent roles in Moon Knight and The Northman and now with The Black Phone. Where do you find inspiration to give shape to this sinister character?
“I’ve often really admired actors that were really good at shape changing themselves; just to kind of become someone else. And I’ve always struggled with my own ability to do that, so one of the ways that I’ve learned to help push my acting to be more dynamic and different is to change the genre I’m working in. You’re one kind of actor in a western and another kind of actor in a romantic comedy and another kind of actor in a cop drama and another kind of actor in a horror movie. By putting myself in different worlds, I think I’ve managed to expand what kind of roles I can play and to push my acting, and I just have to keep doing it. And the good news is that the industry keeps changing around us so the ways that stories are being told is changing, which also helps. If I just do the same kind of movie, I’m going to give the same kind of performance. But if I rattle up the genres, then I can force myself to be a more dynamic actor.”
Tom Savini – known for his special effects makeup for horror films Friday The 13th, Day Of The Dead, Maniac and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 – designed the masks for this. What was the process of figuring out the mask and which parts would be taken off or added for each section of this film?
“The man who designed the masks is a brilliant designer, and he and Scott had the idea that it would be interesting if the mask constantly evolved, so it had one kind of iconic image, but then it was constantly changing; smiling, frowning, no mouth, the left side of the face, the right side of the face, the top, the bottom. Any mask work gives you a sense of playfulness. And it makes body language and vocal work so important. But the idea that the mask itself was evolving, and could say something about who the character was, was great. It was so much fun to have all these different masks out and decide which one to wear for which scene. Scott always had really good ideas about what he wanted. Playing this type of horrible human being was new to me. And also there are aspects of Greek tragedy at work, right? Those old fashioned Greek dramas where you’re representing this evil id of the universe in this basement. What I liked about Sinister, the first horror movie I did with Scott, and this one, is there was a real sense of play. We were just playing: it’s midnight and you’re sitting around a campfire and he’s just telling everybody a spooky story. And you get really into it. That’s the fun of this genre.”
Which aspect of The Grabber most mirrors your own personality?
“Well, I’d like to think that I’m not like The Grabber! One of the things that helped me play the part was, years ago, I played Macbeth, which is one of the greatest pieces of writing about evil ever written; about where it comes from and how insecurity turns into arrogance and into greed, and into dominance. And when you start living a lie, how hard will you work to justify those lies until you just don’t even make sense anymore? By the end of Macbeth, he’s fully insane. I can’t say exactly what I learned from that great piece of writing, but you feel it’s just an epic poem, an incantation of darkness. I felt like with The Grabber that we’re seeing him from the kids’ point of view. We’re not seeing it from his point of view. And we’re finding somebody in the last act of Macbeth, where he’s just completely lost any sense of balance of what’s up and what’s down and what’s North and what’s South. He’s just gone. So I don’t like to think of myself as that person.”
You have worked for close to forty years and you’re also a writer, author and director both on stage and screen. So you are still very busy. What keeps you going on and then looking back, are you satisfied with your career and what are you most proud of?
“Well, that’s a rather deep question. My short answer is that I fell so hard in love with this profession that one lifetime is not enough to master it. You know, you have certain things you can offer as a young performer that are lost, that you can’t do anymore, but there are certain things that you gain and I’ve been fascinated at how the profession keeps changing for me. I’m grateful to still be able to act. I can’t believe that I did my first movie in 1984, so I’ve been doing this a long time. And it’s still really new to me. I just feel like every filmmaker I work with has a fresh viewpoint. You know, working with Robert Eggers this year was a totally new experience for me. The way that he thinks about movies is very different than the way Richard Linklater, Scott Derrickson or Antoine Fuqua think about movies. They all share a love of storytelling and a passion for craft and pursuit of excellence. I like to do different things too. I made a documentary this year about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. [The HBO TV mini-series The Last Movie Stars] That has been really interesting because I’ve been studying other people who did my profession at a very high level for 50 years and watched how they grow and change. And, young actors are pretty much the same everywhere, which is that they’re concerned with themselves and making an impression and if you expand in your work, you start getting really interested in us; in all of us, and what the profession itself can offer, not just what you can offer. That’s exciting to me because then the room gets a lot bigger and more interesting.”
The Black Phone is released in cinemas on July 21. Click here for our review.
