The “Blue Moon” actor said he’d often audition for the same roles as Crudup earlier in their careers.

Ethan Hawke explains tense early relationship with Billy Crudup: ‘You think you’re against everybody’

The "Blue Moon" actor said he'd often audition for the same roles as Crudup earlier in their careers.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and *NME*.

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February 5, 2026 12:19 p.m. ET

Ethan Hawke; Billy Crudup. Credit:

Dia Dipasupil/Getty; Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/Getty

Ethan Hawke is looking back at his tense early relationship with Billy Crudup.

While visiting *The Tonight Show *on Wednesday, which had been decorated to look like the famous New York City restaurant Sardi's, he pointed out the *Almost Famous *star's portrait on the wall and recalled feeling like he was in constant competition with him for roles earlier in their careers.**

"You know what's kind of funny is right behind me, you've got Billy Crudup, who happens to be a friend of mine, but not at first because we used to audition for everything," Hawke explained to host Jimmy Fallon. "You know when you're a kid, you think you're against everybody, right? You don't understand that there's room for everybody to find themselves and do their thing."

Ethan Hawke and Billy Crudup attend the 2009 Young Lions Fiction Awards.

Mark Von Holden/WireImage

This gave Hawke some very mixed emotions whenever he and Crudup crossed paths. "I would see him at every audition," the *Blue Moon *actor said. "I'd often have to be outside the room and listen to him do the scene before me. And he was so good! It was so irritating!"

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Hawke continued, "In fact, I was offered a play once — I think he knows this — and I had to say no to it because I was doing a movie. It was a Tom Stoppard play. And they gave him the part and then his career took off."**

The star admitted that he has been thinking about the choice ever since. "Sometimes I just want to go back in time and take the part to stop his career," he teased.

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Fallon was on board. "Of course!" he shouted. "We must stop Billy Crudup! He's too talented!"

While Hawke didn't identify which play he was referencing, Crudup did become an overnight sensation when he made his Broadway debut in a 1995 production of Stoppard's *Arcadia. *The four-time Tony nominee would later revisit the work in a 2011 Broadway revival, this time playing the role of Bernard Nightingale.**

Fallon went on to explain that he actually had the privilege of surprising Crudup with his Sardi's portrait — a massive honor in the Broadway community — on *The Tonight Show *in February 2025. **

"He literally teared up," the host recalled. "Started getting, like, really hot and kind of flustered and almost started crying. Kind of going like, 'Is this real? Like, are you doing a bit?' And I go, 'No, this is actually real.'"**

Hawke noted that Crudup truly is "the real thing" when it comes to acting, adding, "That story, actually, tells all of you watching this how real Sardi's is [and] what it means to people who do what we do."

Watch Hawke discuss his relationship with Crudup in the clip above.

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