It’s No Mystery: Ethan Hawke Just a Die-Hard Bob Dylan Fan

Chat with teen dream Ethan Hawke and the subject of Bob Dylan will definitely blow into the conversation.

“I am such a fan,” Hawke gushes. “I got like the bootleg series in my CD, an album sitting on my turntable and some weird tape of his in my tape player.”

And Hawke is trying to get the courage to head to his local video store to rent the classic 1967 Dylan documentary, “Don’t Look Back.” He’s avoided it because his friends have warned Hawke that his idol is seen in a less than favorable light. “A friend of mine says it changes your view on his music,” Hawke says. “But Dylan did produce the movie, so he does know how he comes off.”

When Hawke isn’t listening to “John Wesley Harding,” he’s starring in such films as “Dead Poets Society,” “White Fang” and the new comedy-thriller “Mystery Date,” in which he plays a sweet high school graduate whose date with the girl of his dreams turns into a nightmare.

“I have gone on some pretty lousy dates,” Hawke says. “But never like this one.”

Most of “Mystery Date” was shot at night. “I would drive to work at 6 at night when everybody else was coming home from work. We would be working until 3 in the morning and we would get slap happy. But I am a real night person. I operate better at night.”

Making “Mystery Date” was a breeze compared to “White Fang,” which he shot in the arctic regions of Alaska. “When I first got there it was 29 below zero without the wind chill,” he recalls with a shudder. “You have blizzards and can’t drive anywhere because of the mud. And when it gets warmer, the bugs come out. When I was doing it all I wanted to do was go home. But looking back it was an incredible experience.”

And so was making the upcoming anti-war drama “Midnight Clear,” though he had to endure snow and sleet once again. “We shot that in the forests of Utah,” Hawke sighs.