He Said, She Said: Oscar Nominees Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke Discuss ‘Before Midnight’

What's love got to do with it? And what about sex and hard work? Those questions shaped the Yahoo interview with Oscar nominees Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. The actors share a screenwriting credit with their "Before Midnight" director, Richard Linklater. By this third, critically-acclaimed installment of the trilogy that began with "Before Sunrise," the articulate stars were finishing each other's sentences – and bickering – like Celine and Jesse, the couple they've been playing so well onscreen since 1995.

Yahoo Movies: Now that you’ve completed these three movies over two decades, to what extent do you work out the characters on the page? Does each writer take a different part, with Linklater playing the referee?
Ethan Hawke: The basic thing was whether or not we all wanted to write the same movie. All three of us agreed that if we were gonna make a third film, it should be about them being together, and that the first two movies rest so much on the idea of romantic projection and what could be. We had this idea: If you’re gonna do a third one, it should be about what is. What happens when you get what you want? And once that idea happened, then we were all on board. And then it was just a question of how to unfold it.

YM: Did you have an idea of how to unpack the characters, now married with twins?
Julie Delpy: If you go into the heart of a relationship, you know there’s good stuff and there’s bad stuff. We want it to be true, and not make it a fantasy of what a relationship is after nine years. I’m not saying all relationships go through an argument like the one in the movie. But if you’ve been with someone for nine years, you’ve been through a few arguments. There’s so much you have got to work through, and you have to give up things for people. So there’s always a little bit of resentment, things you let slide, but then two years later, you’re like, "Why didn’t I do this?" and "Why didn’t I say something?" It’s a lot of tension, and we felt we needed to go there.

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EH: Also, the challenge for us as writers is really to create a situation where it wasn’t fake and ambiguous. If you watch "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" or something, it’s a couple fighting, but they’re both horrible alcoholics and cruel to each other. Even people who are well meaning and love each other fight and hurt one another. That was more interesting to us. Nobody’s gonna be the bad guy. Nobody’s gonna be having this horrible affair. Nobody’s gonna be hurting the other one. Nobody’s a drug addict, you know what I mean?

JD: The challenge as writers, and also as actors, is to find that right balance. How people are, something true — they’re not caricatures of the Mean Guy, the Bitchy Woman, or whatever. They’re kind of in between. We wanted to show something as real as possible. That sometimes is a challenge as writers, especially on films that are only driven by characters, and not some crazy plot. It’s all character-driven, dialogue-driven, arc-of-character-driven. And it’s a real bitch. It’s a real bitch to find the right tune as writers, but as actors also. Every time we start to act like actors, Richard [Linklater] comes up to us and says, “Too much acting. I can see the acting.”

EH: You’re so right. We’re in this unique situation. We’re getting to write and create situations for us to act in. So we’re really conceiving of a world and then inhabiting it. But it can’t have any performance.

JD: Also, because of the way Rich shoots, by not doing a lot of cuts or close ups to tell people, “This is the person you’re looking at right now,” you can look at the person that’s listening, or the person that’s talking, and decide for yourself. And in a way, that’s more like the real world. When you’re in a café, looking at two people talking, you see them both, and you can decide to look at whoever you want. And that gives this a sense of reality. But by doing those long takes, you have to script it to the pause. Like, when we overlap each other, it’s actually written in the screenplay.

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YM: So it only appears to be improvised, when it's all nailed down in the script? And would you describe the director's method reflects the notion of letting the camera find you?
EH: On stage, they call that bringing the audience to you. But they’re really just talking about simplicity. And I think all the greatest actors had an ability to erase that line, where you can’t tell they’re performing.

JD: We were talking about how Rich seems laid back, but he’s actually very detailed-oriented. If I take a breather, that was scripted and rehearsed. Which is kind of sad, because you would like to think those kinds of films are entirely improvised. But it’s actually a tremendous amount of work. We rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. And it’s fun when it’s done. But it’s not fun when you’re doing it. It’s the most demanding and stressful thing I’ve done.

YM: That rehearsal must apply to the sex scene, too. Is it harder to perform them because you two know each other better now?
EH: Let me tell you a story. On "Before Sunrise," on the Ferris wheel, our characters had their first kiss. Now it’s very romantic. The sun’s setting in Vienna around this beautiful old Ferris wheel. But once we kissed, she screams in front of the whole crew, "Oh my God, he kisses like an adolescent." So, I think our love scenes are improving because from 23 to 41, she didn’t mock me. We did all right.

JD: You know what the difference is? Sometimes when you do love scenes with somebody you don’t know at all, you feel a bit like a prostitute. Like a client walked in, and you’re doing a job. Even when you’re not having sex — maybe it’s just me.

EH: No, exactly. I’ve felt the same way. I really have. And also we wrote it. Sometimes when you write your own material, you don’t feel anyone’s taking advantage of you. When you’re doing a love scene, and the DP’s like, "kiss her neck," "move her hair," you do, you feel a little creepy.

JD: I did have to disconnect. We went into a zone that’s not really us, because otherwise it’s completely impossible. On many of those takes, I go in a zone. You start losing a sense that you’re on a set with reality and movies. That’s when you go into the real acting.

Could you see this film being remade 30 or 40 years from now?

EH: You could do this as a play. I know people do the dialogues in class sometimes. It would be kind of fascinating, and very different, because so much of our film is built on the dynamic of the three of us.