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As hot as Hawke

the undead with Willem Dafoe for the upcoming Daybreakers, a film about those who like to bite their way to the top.

The serious 37-year-old actor, who rose to fame with such popular films as Dead Poets Society and Before Sunrise, is not just an actor. He also wrote the 1996 novel, The Hottest State, and the film version, which he directed, comes to the big screen on August 24 in select cities, with wider distribution in September.

The novel is a coming-of-age story about a vain budding young actor from Texas named William (Mark Webber) who now lives in New York and falls for a singer-songwriter named Sarah (Catalina Sandino Moreno). They have a fevered courtship and plan to marry, but then she leaves him.

This sends William on a journey to Texas to find out about his past and his parents' own love affair. Hawke plays Vince, the father.

Turning his beloved book into a movie was never Hawke's plan. "I certainly took my sweet time to do it."

Hawke has the write stuff

"WHEN I wrote the book, it was at a moment in my life where I was trying very hard to get away from the movie industry. I did my first film at age 13 and now I was 24. I had this longing to create lines and not just say the lines that were provided for me in a script.

The book was a best seller, and Hawke was offered film adaptation deals. At the time, he declined. "I didn't want it to be a movie. I was 25 and had egotistical dreams of grandeur that this book should be like 'The Catcher in the Rye.'

"Over time, people would ask me about it. I asked Michael Almereyda, who directed me in 'Hamlet,' to direct it. He was a fan of the book," Hawke says. "He told me that I should direct it.

"A couple of years went by and it was one of those things I thought about doing," he says. But he allowed the years to pass for a reason. "I wanted to feel removed from the story," he says. "Finally, I was at a place where I was old enough to play the father in the movie and not the main character. I could direct it as well. But I really wanted to wait to outgrow the main character."

Even though Hawke has the smaller role as the father, he wasn't so hot on directing himself. "There is a theory I have about people who direct themselves in movies," he says, laughing. "They have to have this intense desire to sit in a dark editing room and cut together images of themselves. What I wanted to do was work with young actors and create an environment where they could really shine."

Hawke says he's not your typical actor turned director. "I'm the only director in history who will release a director's cut that's shorter. I love to boil something down to its essence.

"I'm very tough on myself as a director," he adds. "I don't want to see this movie in 10 years and think, 'Oh, Ethan, come on!"'

The film explores the joys and perils of young love. "I wrote the book because there isn't a lot of material that explores heartbreak from the male point of view," Hawke says. "In fact, that's not something people have much empathy for in this society. If you're a man you're supposed to be tough. But often, breakups are a lot harder for men who consider themselves tough. You keep it inside and it burns a hole in your stomach."

Hawke says doing justice to his book on screen means more to him now.

"I was dubbed a professional actor at age 18 after the success of 'Dead Poets Society.' It was as if one hit movie claimed my fate," he says. "I wrote the book 'The Hottest State' afterwards, when I wasn't working. It was almost as if I was reclaiming my own fate."

Hawke also attended college at NYU as a creative writing major. "My real dream was to be Jack London," he says. "I didn't want to be Paul Newman. But often our life chooses us and we don't choose our lives."

Today, Hawke alternates between theater and movies. "At its core, the movie industry is a moneymaker, and people look at movies now as units of sale. It's corrosive," he says. "People pick you up for work and other grown-ups get you coffee.

"There's something wonderful about the theater, where it's not about someone getting you coffee. It's about capturing a moment. I also find theater to be beautiful in terms of its depth," he says. "You can spend a year rehearsing a play, but then you do one great night on stage and it's gone.

"This isn't to say that I don't love movies. I'm still impressed with guys my age like Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio who work in mainstream films, yet are always doing something interesting and exciting."

But it's the theater that revives Hawke's passion for this work. "The theater helps me touch the joy of it," he says.

Hawke would prefer that his private life remain private. "I'm connected to the '70s, when I grew up watching guys like Robert Redford. In his heyday, he didn't do the covers of magazines. He wasn't in tabloids. Meryl Streep didn't go on 'The Tonight Show' to promote a film. There was something sacred about the arts. It wasn't for sale."

He sighs and adds, "That world doesn't exist anymore. I see great bands hawking products. Academy Award-winning actors sell sweaters.

"I love that great Marlon Brando quote, 'Some of the most successful people I met are the least successful human beings,"' he says.

When he's not working, Hawke spends his time with his kids.

"My kids are getting older and they're so much fun," he says. "It's funny. We walk around New York and my son says, 'Dad, why are all those people whispering, "Training Day?"'

"I just say, 'Oh, it doesn't mean anything.' I like to keep the kids out of it as much as possible."

Dad being a vampire, though, is another story. "I do have a really great job. I'm the guy who does serious dramas on stage, and then I go to Australia where I have yellow eyes and fangs," he says. "It's an interesting life."