"It's been one of the greatest experiences of my life," Ethan Hawke says about the romantic trilogy spanning 18 years that he, Julie Delpy and director Richard Linklater have created together. The trio appeared together in a self-conducted discussion at the Tribeca Film Festival on Monday, on the occasion of the New York premiere of the third installment in their intimate saga, Sony Pictures Classics' Before Midnight.
The series began in 1995 with Before Sunrise, about two strangers, an American named Jesse and a French woman named Celine, who meet on a train and impulsively spend an evening together in Vienna. Nine years later they reunited in Paris in Before Sunset, as Jesse promoted a novel he wrote about their rendezvous. For that film, Hawke, Delpy and Linklater shared a screenwriting credit and earned Oscar nominations.
Another nine years later in Before Midnight, Jesse and Celine are now a couple vacationing in Greece with twin daughters—and all the baggage that a long-term relationship often entails. At the Tribeca discussion, Delpy called the new film "romantic in a different way...more down and dirty."
The three films are remarkable in that they consist almost entirely of talk yet are utterly engaging. The conversations are so natural that many viewers would be surprised to learn that nothing is improvised, everything is scripted; the seeming spontaneity is the result of weeks of rehearsal. "It's exactly like playing an instrument," Delpy explained. "You learn it like a piece of music." "It makes making other movies seem like a vacation," Hawke said of the exacting work.
There was a lot of good-natured kidding among the two star-writers and their director. Hawke took mock offense to the fact that he had to audition for the role back in 1995, but Linkater said it was a matter of "matchmaking." "I wanted the two most creative people I could find who could be real," he declared, before Hawke interjected, "...and write the fucking script!"
Delpy confessed to being convinced the movie wouldn't work, prompting Hawke to ask, "Do you remember anything you didn't panic about?"
Linklater called the second film, which takes place in real time, "the scariest leap." He recalled, "No one wanted the sequel. [Before Sunrise] is the lowest-grossing film ever to spawn a sequel... But I'm so grateful we were allowed to do it."
The success of Before Sunset and its Oscar nomination allowed Delpy to kickstart her own directing career with the art-house hit 2 Days in Paris. "I said to myself: Why don't I write something that seems like Before Sunset? I tricked [the financiers]."
Asked about their co-writing process, Hawke reflected, "We're a symbiotic unit creating Jesse and Celine." He added, "It's like a parallel life now... I love the notion of blurring the line between performer and performance."
Delpy seconded the notion: "I can't [tell] the difference between fiction and reality anymore."
Near the end of the session, Hawke hinted he might have preferred less talk and more (romantic) action: "It's been 18 years of frustration!"
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