Hawke on families in peril

MANILA, Philippines - From Universal Pictures, the horror thriller The Purge illustrates the government’s response to an America overrun by escalating crime and overcrowded prisons. For a 12-hour period, once a year, any and all criminal activity, including murder, becomes legal. And on this one particular night, James (Ethan Hawke) and Mary Sandin (Lena Headey) and their two children, will learn just how vicious the outside world can be.

Hawke talked about why the subject of families in peril make for good suspense and horror films, what he enjoys about making genre movies, getting to film somewhat chronologically, how much fun the fight scenes were, what he thinks this film says about society, and whether he believes humans are inherently violent. 

Why do you think families in peril make for good suspense and horror films?

“Well, the family in peril trip is kind of obvious, in that it’s everybody’s biggest fear. There’s a moment in the movie where you see the husband and wife loading guns, and he teaches her to take the safety off. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.  Nightmares are a strange thing. Your worst fear is sometimes something you enjoy thinking about, for some strange reason. I don’t know why that is, but it’s some kind of fantasy that people play out. ‘What would I do to protect my children? I’d do anything.’ And then, you watch it play out. I’m petrified of such a thing. I don’t really enjoy thinking about it.”

As a writer yourself, did you have any input into the script, or did you want to stay hands-off, in that regard?

“I have a lot of respect for James DeMonaco. It’s very difficult to make a movie like this with this budget, and he had his work cut out for him. I couldn’t begin to write a movie like this. I could try to help him, or help myself create a full three-dimensional character. This character was very hard to play, in a lot of ways, because he’s not overtly a bad guy. He thinks he’s a good guy. It’s easy to play a villain, and it’s easy to play a hero. This guy is in this weird gray zone of a person, who is culpable for a lot of negative things in his life, but isn’t aware of them, and he slowly wakes up. But, I certainly didn’t assist in the writing. I just worked on my own character.”

Considering the ending of the movie, would you want to have a gun or weapon to defend your family, if you were attacked?

“I’d really rather that nobody had a gun, and then nobody would have to worry about it. That would be more my theory.  In America, there’s this knee-jerk response that more walls and more guns make people safer, and I’m entirely suspect of that way of thinking.”

Does it blow your mind that both Before Midnight and The Purge are rated R?

“It’s amazing. It’s almost like something out of The Purge that Before Midnight would be rated R. It’s fascinating to me, because of a breast. I see PG-13 movies with my son, that have a death count in the thousands, it seems like sometimes. I never know how they come up with it. Our country’s relationship to sex and violence is a fascinating conundrum to me. It’s both puritanical, on one level, and libertarian, on the next. It’s funny.  As we did interviews and stuff, it was only the American press that was so concerned with Julie’s breasts. We did interviews with people all over the world, and they didn’t ask her about her tits. But here, everybody was like, ‘By the way, can we talk about your breasts?’ It’s fascinating. We’re like little, abused children who never saw a titty. But yet, The Purge is absolutely terrifying.  

The Purge is released and distributed by United International Pictures through Solar Entertainment Corp. It’s now showing nationwide.