Deep in the Hart of Texas: Is 2026 the Year Ethan Hawke Cheats Oscar Death?

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and if the current awards season chatter is to be believed, the trophy case for the Lone Star State is about to get a little more crowded. We Texans are used to seeing our own up on that podium — McConaughey’s “alright, alright, alright,” Zellweger’s dual triumphs, the stoic grace of Tommy Lee Jones and the powerhouse performances of Sissy Spacek and Jamie Foxx. We know gold when we see it. But this year feels different. This year, it feels personal.

Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke, the dynamic duo of Texas cinema, have returned with Blue Moon. And folks, the stars at night are big and bright, but they’ve got nothing on the heat radiating off this film.

Blue Moon is a breakup movie, but not the kind where you fight over who gets to keep the dog. It’s the dissolution of one of the greatest artistic partnerships in American history: Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Hawke, born in Austin, steps into the tragic, tuxedoed shoes of Hart on the night of the Oklahoma! premiere in 1943. It’s a performance that has already snagged him a Best Actor win from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. He’s also landed nominations for a Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Association, and according to the betting pools over at Variety, he might finally be inching toward that elusive Oscar win.

But the plot thickens — or perhaps, the gumbo gets richer. Linklater, our Houston-born auteur, is currently competing against himself. Both Blue Moon and his other new film, Nouvelle Vague, are squaring off in the Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy category at the Golden Globes. It’s a Texas standoff of the most artistic variety.

During a recent press conference, we at the Dallas Observer had the chance to dig a little deeper into the soul of Blue Moon. We asked Linklater and the cast about a pivotal line in the movie where Hart, in a moment of desperate, drunken clarity, claims, “I have written a handful of words that are going to cheat death.” We wanted to know if the talent — Hawke, Linklater and co-star Andrew Scott (who plays Rodgers) — had ever felt that spark of immortality in their own careers.

Scott, perhaps best known as “Hot Priest” in the Fleabag series, was the first to chime in, and his answer was as elegant as the man himself. He spoke about the strange magic of theater, referencing his time playing the role of Hamlet.

“The lines are 400 years old,” Scott noted, marveling at the durability of ink on a page. He described the sensation of “time traveling” when playing classic roles, feeling a “collective dance” with generations of audiences past and future. It’s a beautiful sentiment — that art is a relay race where the baton never drops.

Then came Hawke, the man of the hour. His response was characteristically humble yet profound. He acknowledged the hubris of Hart’s claim in the film (“spoken with the modesty of a true lunatic,” his character admits), but found truth in it. “Even Shakespeare will eventually play his course,” Hawke mused, reminding us that while words may cheat death for a while, eternity is a long time. Yet, there is a defiance in Hart’s claim. In the film, Hart bellows that Oklahoma! would “close in shame if it could hear eight bars of what’s in my heart.” It’s the cry of an artist who knows he is being left behind by a world shifting toward the sunny optimism of Rodgers and Hammerstein, yet refuses to go quietly into that good night.

Linklater, ever the philosopher-director, took the conversation from the ethereal to the communal. He drew a sharp line between the ephemeral nature of theater and the permanence of film. “It’s fascinating to see actors perform amazingly and then immediately return to everyday life,” he said, reflecting on the odd duality of the actor’s existence. But his most poignant thought was on the nature of cinema itself: “People gathering to willingly be told lies in a dark room.”

That is the crux of Blue Moon. It captures the pain of being the “loser” in a success story. As Hawke put it, if we can love the loser, “then we get really strong.” The film forces us to look at Hart — a man described as “ambisexual” by his own character, struggling with self-confidence and unrequited love — and find the beauty in his breakdown.

This isn’t just another biopic. It’s the ninth collaboration between Hawke and Linklater, a partnership that has given us the Before trilogy and Boyhood. They share a cinematic shorthand that allows them to explore vulnerability with surgical precision. When Hart asks, “How do you feel about me?” and is met with a devastatingly platonic “respect” and “gratitude,” it lands like a physical blow. You don’t need special effects when you have Texas talent this raw.

So, as we head deeper into awards season, keep your eyes on these local heroes. Hawke has forced himself through the door of cinematic history once again, this time by shrinking himself down (literally, through camera tricks) to play the diminutive giant of Broadway. If the Academy has any sense, they’ll see that while Lorenz Hart may have feared being forgotten, Ethan Hawke’s performance is one for the ages.

After all, Hart was right. He did write words that cheated death. We’re still singing “Blue Moon.” And we’ll be talking about this movie for a long, long time.

Blue Moon is now available to watch on digital platforms, such as Fandango at Home. However, expect the film to return to Dallas theaters as Hawke and Co. continue to pick up steam throughout awards season.