George voicing Paul Newman's voice in new Last Movies Stars series

Ethan Hawke on Why George Clooney Was Right Choice to Voice Paul Newman in ‘The Last Movie Stars’

Hawke, who directs the six-hour documentary about Newman and Joanne Woodward, notes of the couple: "To have two 50 year careers that are so inspiring, but to also have that be inside a marriage that really is unique."

[size=10][size=13]BY MIA GALUPPO
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MARCH 14, 2022 10:45AM

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Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman from 'The Last Movie Stars' COURTESY OF NOOK PRODUCTIONS FOR CNN FILMS/HBO MAX


A short way into the first chapter of The Last Movie Stars — the six-hour documentary that Ethan Hawke directed about the lives, careers, and marriage of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward — Sam Rockwell pops into the frame, on a Zoom call. Then comes Laura Linney, Billy Crudup, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Kazan and George Clooney, with an unimaginably fluffy St. Bernard puppy.

For the doc about the two Hollywood icons, Hawke enlisted an array of actors to read old journals and interviews, some of which come from a previously abandoned memoir that Newman commissioned from his friend and screenwriter Stewart Stern. These actors lend their voices to Newman, Woodard, and their contemporaries like Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet and Gore Vidal. (In a heated auction in 2021, Knopf won the rights to publish the memoir.)




The first of the six chapters of The Last Movie Stars premieres at SXSW on March 14 before heading to CNN+ later this year. Ahead of its debut, Hawke talked to THR about the lasting appeal of Woodward and Newman and how his doc may fall under “pandemic art”.

You likely had enough materials to do a straight biodoc. How did you land on the idea of using actors reading transcripts of the interviews to be the backing of the documentary?

I started realizing that you really can’t talk about Paul and Joanne without talking about their generation, in the culture and world that they were born into. And I wanted in the same way that they’re interconnected with their generation, I’m interconnected with mine. I thought it would be interesting for it to be one generation looking back on what happened before us. Why now? Why in 2022, should you take time out of your life to think about Paul and Joanne? I thought it could make it contemporary and make it speak to not just reportage about, “this happened, that happened,” but to actually have a meditation on why [it] happened might be interesting or relevant to now.

The story is so big. A 50-year career is a lot. One of my favorite art documentaries is Scorsese’s No Direction Home and I realized as soon as I started working on this, why he contained that documentary. It didn’t try to be Bob Dylan’s whole life. It explored just a few years. If you wanna make one substantive, meaningful documentary about Paul and Joanne and have to be like two hours and change, I would have to pick a time period. But the family had really wanted me to tell their whole story. To have two 50 year careers that are so inspiring, but to also have that be inside a marriage that really is unique.







In the first chapter, Paul Newman talks about his insecurities when it came to other performers, and he names people like John Malkovich and Jack Nicholson. How was it, as a performer yourself, to hear about Paul Newman openly voicing these insecurities?


I found it so thrilling that someone as iconic as Paul Newman would be insecure. It made him human for me. Every one of us goes through our life worrying that we’re not enough. You know? Once you realize that even he felt that way, you’re like: Oh okay, I don’t have to hate myself for my insecurities. Like, they’re just a part of living. When I read in his transcript that James Dean made him nervous, [I thought] of course he did! He’s James Dean! The whole thing becomes terribly human, and you’re like: Oh, Saint Matthew or whatever didn’t sprinkle fairy dust all over you and make you impervious. You just had to fight through it, like the rest of us. Yeah. I felt like that might be inspiring to other people. I love the moment when Paul says, “I knew when Ben Gazzara said I was fake that I was a Shaker Heights asshole.” I would have never thought that like Paul Newman was made insecure by Ben Gazzara. But I guess if I was in an acting class with Ben Gazzara, I would’ve been.

How did you go about casting the actors that would voice the people in your documentary?

This documentary may —  and this may be disparaging in the future or not — clearly fall into something that will be called “pandemic art.” I would’ve never been able to get this collection together if people weren’t still frozen at home and frozen in time. I just kind of followed my nose. I know Sam Rockwell, I’ve known him for years since we were kids. you know, and since we were kids. He’s a fun person to talk to about why Cool Hand Luke is a great movie. And I’m doing all this stuff on a Elia Kaza and I thought I should talk to Zoe. Booby Canavalle, he’s so opinionated and thoughtful about his work and craft. I just decided to reach out to people that I thought might help me. It also just became really fun.It made the making of the documentary fun for me to be like: What does Clooney think about Paul Newman? Because when you think about it, Clooney’s one of the few people of my generation who have really been a cinema luminary and put themselves out there politically put them out there themselves socially. He is one of the handful of people on the planet that might know what Paul thinking when he says this, that, or the other thing. Clooney’s had such a long career, himself. I have Laura Linney voicing Joanne Woodward and Laura was one of Joanne’s pupils. It’s a way to make the documentary personal, not just for me, but for my generation.



           https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ethan-hawke-last-movie-stars-1235110861/