“Training Day” actor Ethan Hawke, 54, is reflecting on his failed marriage to fellow actress Uma Thurman, 55.
After meeting on the set of 1997’s “Gattaca” movie, Hawke and the “Pulp Fiction” star were married from 1998 to 2005. They have two children, a daughter, Maya, 26, and a son, Levon, 23.
The ex-couple separated in 2003 following allegations that Hawke cheated on Thurman with their children’s nanny, Ryan Shawhughes.
In a new feature article for GQ, Hawke opened up about ending his relationship with Thurman. He explained how being the target of tabloid media during his time with the Oscar-nominated New England native impacted his life.
“It’s humiliating. It’s almost humiliating even when they’re saying positive things,” Hawke stated to the men’s fashion magazine. He then offered an explanation for why he and other Hollywood regulars oftentimes fall in love on film sets, like his “Gattaca” experience with Thurman.
“There’s a certain intimacy to the work that we do. Imaginative intimacy,” Hawke continued. “It’s such a high. It feels dangerous and thrilling. It turns the temperature up in your life. It can be like falling in love at summer camp.”
“It doesn’t have any connection to the dailiness of real life. That’s the danger of it,” the Texas-born, New York-raised Daytime Emmy Award winner added.
During a previous interview with GQ in 2018, Hawke discussed how earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for 2001’s “Training Day” impacted the Carnegie Mellon University dropout’s then-marriage to Uma.
“In a lot of ways, it could have been the beginning of something. It was the best moment of my career. Like, ‘Maybe, maybe, you could be commercially viable,’” Hawke said about starring in the Antoine Fuqua-directed crime thriller that grossed $104 million at the worldwide box office.
He also admitted, “I got divorced and my personal life fell apart. I don’t know if you feel this way, but when you’re depressed, it’s really easy to see everything that is fake about other people and life, and I just started seeing all that. How phony celebrity was, how phony everything is.”
Hawke’s latest revelations about his time being romantically involved with Thurman generated reactions from online celebrity watchers. New York Post readers had thoughts about the two movie stars breaking up over two decades ago.
“I think when her star started rising with ‘Kill Bill’, he gave her a dose of what most insecure men give. Public humiliation,” one person theorized about Thurman’s breakout performance in legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s 2003 martial arts action flick.
ethan hawke & uma thurman pic.twitter.com/naYugc7zFk
— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) September 1, 2025
A second wondered, “Totally forgot that he got caught with the nanny (who he later married). Maybe he should leave all this in the past instead of reminding everyone what a low-life he really is..?”
A third said, “He admitted he was jealous of her success. Funny how he married the nanny he denied cheating with…Small little man.”
A Daily Mail commenter offered, “Humiliating to who? He was the one who was caught cheating with the nanny. Maybe think before doing something like that. He is a jerk and highly overrated. Never liked him.”
Hawke has denied that his eventual relationship with Shawhughes was the cause of his marriage to Uma falling apart. After she helped care for his two children, Shawhughes and Hawke reportedly reconnected and began dating in 2006, a year after his divorce from Thurman. They eventually tied the knot in June 2008 and became parents to two children.
“I met Ryan through my literary agent, and she was indeed one of Maya and Levon’s nannies during a film shoot,” Hawke said to The Guardian in 2009. “After a short period of working for me, Ryan went back to Columbia to get her degree. There were never any scandalous thoughts or actions back then.”
Shawhughes has also worked in the entertainment industry as an actress, notably having a small part in 2007’s “The Hottest State,” which was directed by Hawke, who had a role in the drama as well.
In July 2008, Hawke and Shawhughes welcomed their first daughter, Clementine Jane Hawke. A second daughter, Indiana Hawke, arrived in July 2011. Thurman was married to English actor Gary Oldman from 1990 to 1992. She also has a 13-year-old daughter, Luna Thurman-Busson, with financier Arpad Busson.
For her part, Thruman has kept it classy when it comes to her self-described “unfulfilled marriage” to Hawke. She is on the record saying, “I cannot participate in anything critical about my children’s father.”