Ethan Hawke bites.
Wait, what?
Yeah, I never had much of an opinion on Ethan Hawke other than I like his movies. But then came his interview on the Bill Simmons podcast and that all changed.
Here’s why Ethan Hawke bites:
“Who’s your team?” Simmons asked innocently enough.
“I’ve been a Knicks fan for a long time,” Hawke explained, “but I got kicked out of the Garden. They won’t give me tickets anymore.”
OK, so here’s where you gotta pay attention. Note that he says they won’t “give” him tickets anymore.
He continued, explaining that he went on some talk shows, notably Jimmy Fallon, and badmouthed the team over the firing of Mike D’Antoni and, as a result, “[has] been left teamless.”
Simmons: “You could buy tickets and go if you wanted.”
Hawke: “The point is that I’m not wanted and I don’t go where I’m not wanted. It’s hard to be a fan for a place that doesn’t like you.”
Simmons: “But one person doesn’t like you.” (That person being owner James Dolan.)
Hawke: “You have to understand, since ‘Reality Bites’ came out once I was I was kind of [a celebrity], I would call up and say, ‘Hey can I get tickets?’ Sometimes they wouldn’t have tickets but they’d always hook me up. … And then I called up one time and they said, ‘That will be $7,800.’ I was like, ‘Oh, um, oh, why is this the first time you guys are charging me?’ They said that you should have thought of that before you went on the [‘Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’]. I was like, ‘Wow, this is real.’
“… I’ve apologized many times to try to get my seats again …”
OK, stop the tape.
First off, Ethan, they WEREN’T YOUR SEATS. When you don’t pay for something, they aren’t yours. They are gifts.
Second, it doesn’t appear you were ever “kicked out of the Garden.” You were asked to pay to go inside, just like everyone else.
At this point, Hawke has no clue how entitled and out of touch he sounds. Simmons, to his credit, offers him an out. Instead, Hawke goes on:
“That happened around the same time LeBron decided to go [back] to Cleveland. And there was something about him going back to Cleveland that is so righteous, so cool and it marked some transition in my willingness to accept LeBron’s greatness. … I didn’t have a team, and I have followed with beautiful fandom the LeBron James movement. And I am in a period of ecstasy right now watching one of the greatest players to play the game have one of the greatest seasons.”
So to recap, Ethan Hawke was a huge Knicks fan until they started making him pay for tickets. And when they did, Hawke, who’d recently sold his New York City townhouse for a $2.8 million profit, took it as an affront, so much so he became a LeBron James fan.
Congrats Ethan, you’ve somehow made James Dolan into a somewhat sympathetic figure.
https://sports.yahoo.com/ethan-hawke-quit-knicks-fan-stopped-getting-free-tickets-230959289.html
