Ethan Hawke has built a career out of finding the right words, as an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, a novelist and an actor. But when it comes to his daughter Maya Hawke’s wedding, even he comes up short.
The actor, 56, opened up about the big day during his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, Nov. 5. When Fallon asked how Maya’s wedding went, Hawke decided to keep it simple. “It’s the greatest day of my life,” he said.
He then tried to explain why it was so hard to put into words. Some moments in life, he said, are ones “you don’t expect, that just run you over.”
Asked whether he got emotional, Hawke offered a confession that drew laughs. “I’m an actor! I tried to keep my cool,” he said. It’s a funny admission from someone whose job is turning on big feelings when the cameras roll.
It isn’t the first time the proud dad has struggled to describe the moment. Back in April, he told Entertainment Tonight that walking Maya, 28, down the aisle left him without the vocabulary to describe it. “I felt like I was 13, experiencing life for the first time,” he said.
Hawke also had nothing but praise for his new son-in-law, musician Christian Lee Hutson, calling him an “amazing young man” and even sending him birthday wishes on air. In the end, Hawke said, only one thing really mattered. “Maya is really happy,” he told Fallon.
The Stranger Things star married Hutson in a surprise Valentine’s Day ceremony in New York City earlier this year. Maya’s mom Uma Thurman, her brother Levon Thurman-Hawke and several Stranger Things costars, including Sadie Sink and Joe Keery, were among the guests.
For a man who has spent his career giving voice to complicated emotions, Hawke’s simplest answer might have been his most honest. Sometimes “the greatest day of my life” says it all.
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