Ethan Hawke: 'It’s just a petrifying time to speak about male sexuality'

The Oscar-nominated actor on his new novel set during a production of Henry IV, dealing with bad reviews and art’s role in examining all human behaviour

Ethan Hawke is an actor, writer and director, star of the films Dead Poets Society, Training Day and Boyhood. He has been nominated for Academy Awards for his acting, and for his writing on Before Sunsetand Before Midnight. Hawke describes theatre as his first love and has featured in a number of plays by Sam Shepard, as well as in productions of work by Shakespeare, Chekhov, and his own second cousin twice-removed, Tennessee Williams.

Hawke’s first novel, The Hottest State, was published in 1996. His second, Ash Wednesday, came out in 2002. Now, with A Bright Ray of Darkness, Hawke brings us a novel that is structured around a stage production of Henry IV, Part 1. The book’s narrator, William Harding, is a hard-drinking film star who seeks to overcome a period of personal turmoil by throwing himself into his role as Henry Percy.

If critics don’t like my novels then really they just don’t like the way my brain works, and I’m OK with that