Ethan Hawke is opening up about the part of divorce that still weighs on him, nearly two decades after ending his marriage to Uma Thurman.
In a candid conversation with the Los Angeles Times, the actor explained that the hardest parts of a split have nothing to do with fame and everything to do with family.
“The public eye is like gasoline, but what makes divorce hard is the stuff that makes it hard for everyone, the family elements, how to help the kids through it,” Hawke, 55, shared.
He admitted he has always admired people who manage “amicable splits,” saying, “I’m so envious of people who have amicable splits.”
Hawke quickly made it clear that he wouldn’t go much further, reminding the outlet that he made a promise to his children not to publicly discuss the divorce.
“I can’t really talk about this because I vowed to my kids so many times not to talk about the divorce in public,” he said.
Still, he offered one reflection: “If you get the privilege of traveling the world, you realize that everywhere men and women have a tremendous amount of difficulty staying married.”
The actor also shared a glimpse of how life surprised him after the breakup.
When his marriage ended, Hawke said he was determined never to have more children and planned to stay single.
But that changed when he grew close to Ryan Shawhughes, who would later become his wife.
“I was hellbent on not having any more kids… But then I made a best friend and I liked kissing her,” he said of their relationship.
The two now share daughters Clementine, 17, and Indiana, 14.
Earlier this year, Hawke reflected on how intense the media attention was around his split with Thurman.
In September, he told GQ that the experience was “humiliating,” noting that even positive press felt overwhelming.
He described his relationship with Thurman, which sparked after meeting on the set of Gattaca in 1997, as something that grew out of “chasing cinematic enchantment.”
When asked why actors often fall in love while filming, he explained that on-set intimacy can feel exhilarating but detached from real life.
Actors, he said, experience “a high” that can be “dangerous and thrilling,” like “falling in love at summer camp.”
He added that it “doesn’t have any connection to the dailiness of real life,” which is where the real challenge lies.
Hawke and Thurman married in 1998 and welcomed two children together: Maya, now 27, and Levon, 23.
Thurman filed for divorce in 2005, at a time when rumours circulated about Hawke’s connection to Shawhughes, who had previously worked as the couple’s nanny.
Hawke and Shawhughes married in 2008.
Thurman later moved on with hedge fund manager Arpad Busson, with whom she shares daughter Luna. Their relationship, which included an engagement, eventually came to an end in 2014.
Through it all, Hawke’s reflections make one thing clear: while celebrity can amplify a breakup, the real challenges of divorce, especially when children are involved, are universal.
