Ethan Hawke candidly shared regret over his daughter Maya Hawke’s “really hard and complicated” upbringing.
“There were a lot of things about her childhood that were really, really hard and complicated, and things I regret for her,” Ethan told Sydney Sweeney during their “Actors on Actors” conversation with Variety, which was released on Thursday.
While he neglected to share how her childhood was difficult, Ethan, 55, admitted that he knew Maya would grow up to “be an artist” when she was just 4 years old.
“I knew that she was gonna be a very good one,” the “Black Phone” star shared. “That was her safe place, watercoloring, dancing, singing all throughout her childhood.”
“Anything that had to do with human communication was something she vibrated to,” he said, reflecting with pride on his daughter’s wise beyond years knowledge.
“I remember some teacher said, ‘Maya, are you happy?’ Cause they were worried about her. And she said something to the effect of, ‘Do you really think that’s the question?’”
“I thought, ‘I love this kid,’” he continued. “She was about 13. [Maya said] ‘I don’t think that’s a very interesting question. I think there’s a lot more interesting questions than whether I’m happy or not. Am I happy? No. But I don’t aspire to be happy.’”
Maya would go on to prove her father’s hunch correct as she grew up to star in major hits like Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
She’s also set to star in the forthcoming films “One Night Only,” “Wishful Thinking” and “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.”
In addition to Maya, 27, Ethan is also dad to son Levon, 23 — whom he also shares with ex-wife Uma Thurman — and daughters Clementine Jean, 17, and Indiana, 14, whom he welcomed with current wife, Ryan Shawhughes.
As Ethan neglected to explain the hardships his daughter faced, the “Dead Poets Society” star has also purposefully avoided discussions on his high-profile divorce from Thurman in 2005.
However, the actor revealed why he doesn’t publicly talk about his breakup from Thurman, citing his children as the reason.
“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 in November while discussing how he feels divorce is “hard” because of “the family elements.”
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