Ethan Hawke’s visual audiences

Ethan Hawke likes “t*ts and guns”. The 39-year-old actor believes movie audiences prefer to be visually excited than asked to think about what they are seeing, but still feels he has a responsibility to ensure his films don’t show gratuitous violence.

He said: “You know, it’s easy to get people’s attention with t*ts and guns. It’s harder to get their attention with ideas. The thing is, I’ve always liked t*ts and guns.

“I do know that I take a certain pride in making a movie that doesn’t show people being shot or beaten up.”

The ‘Training Day’ actor also admitted he used to dream of making just one movie every four years in order to accommodate his other professional ambitions, but has now realised it was an unrealistic idea.

He added in an interview with the Daily Telegraph website: “When I was younger I really admired people like Warren Beatty who could do one movie every four years. I thought I could do all that: run a theatre company, write a book, make the occasional movie.

“But life doesn’t work like that, or at least it only does for one or two people every generation. It took me a long time to realise that I didn’t understand things as well as I thought I did.”