Ethan Hawke says people have 'childish view of monogamy and fidelity'

June 26, 2013. Ethan Hawke smiles during a news conference in Bucharest. (Reuters)

Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman divorced nine years ago and the 43-year-old actor has opened up about how they fell in love on the set of their 1997 film "Gattaca."

"Gattaca was a great moment in my life and a great moment in Uma Thurman's life, and we fell madly in love and wanted to do all that," Hawke related to Mr. Porter's November 2013 issue of their past relationship. "We tried to be as optimistic as we could be: we all want to believe in love and the possibility of love."

The pair who were married for six years before divorcing in 2004 had two children together, daughter Maya, 15, and son Roan, 11. He then went on to marry the couple's nanny Ryan Shawhughes in 2008. They also have two children together. 

"My relationship with my present wife is thrilling to me and I'm committed to it," he said of Shawhughes. "But neither she nor I know what shape the future will come in. Sexual fidelity can't be the whole thing you hang your relationship on. If you really love somebody you want them to grow, but you don't get to define how that happens. They do."

Hawke sees society's current views on monogamy and adultery as outdated.

"People have such a childish view of monogamy and fidelity. 'He's cheated so he's bad, she's cheated so she's bad,' as opposed to a recognition that our species is not monogamous," he explained. "To act all indignant, that your world has been rocked because your lover wasn't faithful to you, is a little bit like acting rocked that your hair went grey."

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