Ethan Hawke Gave Rose Byrne a Hard Time About Her Review of His Novel

Last week, before the Golden Globes’ awards, Ethan Hawke appeared at the New York Film Critics Awards ceremony. And look: When you’re on the awards circuit, you probably have to think of half a dozen or more different things to say for all the various awards shows (I’m always surprised, for instance, when an actor gives a brilliant speech at, say, the Critic’s Choice Awards and turns around and gives a completely different, brilliant speech at the Oscars).

Anyway, Ethan Hawke (The Lowdown) used his time to give Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) guff for giving him a bad review on Goodreads 16 years ago for his book, The Hottest State, which left Byrne hilariously red-faced. You can watch here.

Ethan Hawke calls out Rose Byrne for panning his first novel on Goodreads, saying “It reads like a poor man’s attempt at a Ryan Adams song.”
byu/namesnotmarina inFauxmoi

Her review, for me at least, does come up first on Goodreads for his book. How Hawke knew it was her, I have no idea. But it’s hilarious.

Unfortunately, the profile is set to private, so we cannot peruse her Goodreads history. Also, Ethan: Goodreads is not a “little paper” and Byrne was not a “critic.” But the point is taken. Also, I am a critic, and while I didn’t review the novel, I did review the movie he adapted from his own novel. Here’s an excerpt:

You haven’t seen “pseudo-pretentious” until you’ve witnessed The Hottest State, a film directed by a pseudo-pretentious Ethan Hawke based upon a pseudo-pretentious Ethan Hawke novel. It’s one thing to be obnoxiously pompous and showy, but it’s a whole different bag of ball peen cranial hammers to aspire to be pompous and showy and yet fail as miserably as Ethan Hawke does. Indeed, that whole “Ethan Hawke persona” that we’ve all gleaned over the years from countless different roles — in both good movies and bad — is seemingly 100 percent accurate: He’s a certifiable pseudo-pretentious windbag who wants so badly to be Gus Van Sant that it makes my spleen ache like a saxophone inside a sick tooth. And the biggest problem I have with it is not an outright dislike for his work, but a queasy brand of pity I feel for a writer/director who seems almost all too aware of just how third-rate he is comparatively. It’s like … like … Jewel showing up to a poetry reading at Maya Angelou’s house. She’s gotta know just how badly she’s going to embarrass herself, but you feel equal parts shame and reverence for the brazen audacity it takes to get up there and avail her grade-school level vulnerabilities in front of a poet laureate.

I mean, Jesus Ethan: Surely, even you realize that the statement, “I wondered if sex was easier in Texas than it was in New York,” is not nearly as deep and insightful as you’d like it to be. So, for God’s sake: If you’re going to make a film with all the profundity of two eighth grade school girls passing giggly notes back and forth, at least have the sense to cast Brittany Snow and Zac Efron and market the damn thing to Disney tweeners, instead of the independent filmgoers he’s got to know will tear him apart like Oprah at a James-Frey-and-beefsteak convention

Ah, 2007 pop culture references. Good times. He’s still fantastic in The Lowdown. Also, you can watch Ethan Hawke and Rose Byrne in a nifty little movie based on a Nick Hornby novel called Juliet, Naked.