When the Stars Align

Ethan Hawke examines Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, but also himself.

- KATHRYN VANARENDONK

THE SWEATIEST, most homeworklike moment of any documentary is the job of setting the stakes, that necessary introduction that typically relies on sweeping generalizations about time and human nature. A six-part series on the lives of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, directed by and prominently featuring Ethan Hawke, could have slipped into plaintive nostalgia for a bygone era or underexamined hero worship for the two icons' towering legacies. Its title alone, The Last Movie Stars, feels a bit like a joke when articulated by a man with a lengthy section of accolades on his own Wikipedia. But the docuseries runs on Hawke's enthusiastic curiosity about his subjects. He showcases Newman's and Woodward’s work with a careful critical assessment, and the result is personal and loving, especially in the many sequences that dwell on the stars’ darker, less flattering qualities.

The series’ foundational material comes from a massive library of interviews Newman helped collect as part of a potential memoir. Although he eventually destroyed the tapes, one of his children gave Hawke boxes and boxes of transcribed interviews with over a hundred of Newman’s and Woodward’s friends, family members, and collaborators. Hawke makes two choices about those transcripts that shape what eventually becomes The Last Movie Stars: He asks other celebrities to narrate them, and he includes his conversations with these other actors about the project in the series itself.