Ethan Hawke knows his place in history — with Swifties, at least.
In an interview released Wednesday, May 15, the 53-year-old actor spoke with Sirius XM’s The Jess Cagle Show about making a surprise cameo in Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” video alongside his Dead Poets Society costar, Josh Charles, 52.
“I think there’s some kind of psychic connection she was trying to provide for the fans about The Tortured Poets Department and the Dead Poets Society,” he said. “She was kind of doing some little homage, and so she asked a couple of us old dogs to come out and make our presence known.”
“It’s so amazing because it’s a completely different realm for you,” host Julia Cunningham said, adding that within “the whole Swiftie, larger culture — there’s a whole Swiftipedia — it lists you as, you know, appears in “Fortnight’ video, as if that’s the only thing you’ve ever done.”
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“It’s funny you say that because I thought, as I was flying out there, I thought, you know, I’ve worked so hard in my life, and I have a feeling this will be in my obituary,” Hawke confessed, conceding that he “might get a few other mentions.”
Last month, Swift unveiled her moody “Fortnight” clip in tandem with her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. Hawke and Charles play scientists experimenting on Swift’s character after a failed relationship. Post Malone, who collaborated with Swift on the song, also makes an appearance.
Swift, who wrote and directed the music video, praised the Dead Poets actors on Instagram, writing, “I’m still laughing from getting to work with the coolest guys on earth, @ethanhawke and @mrjoshcharles (tortured poets, meet your colleagues from down the hall, the dead poets).”
Last week on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Hawke said that he had signed an NDA ahead of the video’s release and so he couldn’t tell his kids about his top-secret role. He also recalled walking through an airport with Charles, his friend of “35 years and [watching] all the young people with their Eras [Tour] sweatshirts on and their Taylor Swift things, and we got something on them. We’re going to meet the queen ourselves.”
“We laughed ourselves silly the whole day,” he said. “We felt like the biggest rock stars in the world.”
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Hawke, who has starred in a long string of popular and acclaimed films from Before Sunset to Training Day, is currently promoting Wildcat, a drama he directed featuring his daughter, Maya Hawke.
Swift, meanwhile, kicked off the European leg of her Eras Tour earlier this month with four shows in France, surprising fans with a new setlist, new costumes and songs from Tortured Poets, including “Fortnight.”
