Novelist and short story writer Flannery O’Connor once said her life was too boring for a biographer—all she did was write and feed chickens. And yet, nearly 100 years after she was born, O’Connor’s life and faith are explored in Wildcat, a new film from actor, writer, and director Ethan Hawke of Training Day, First Reformed, and Dead Poets Society fame.
On this episode of The Russell Moore Show, Hawke and Moore discuss what compelled Hawke to cowrite Wildcat with Shelby Gaines. They talk about how O’Connor’s work connected Hawke to his mother and, later, to his daughter Maya, who plays O’Connor in the film.
Moore and Hawke explore O’Connor’s forcefulness and faith. They discuss the joys and challenges of working with family, how audiences are engaging with the religious elements in Wildcat, and Hawke’s attraction to exploring issues of faith in art. And they talk about the meaning of creative work, institutions, and relationships in a fraught era.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
- Wildcat
- Ethan Hawke
- Maya Hawke
- Shelby Gaines
- The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor
- A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- First Reformed
- The Good Lord Bird
- Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage?: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress by Jessica Hooten Wilson
- “A South Without Myths” by Alice Walker
- “Why did Flannery O’Connor detest ‘Gone with the Wind’?
- ”Richard RohrWatership Down: The Graphic Novel by Richard Adams, adapted and illustrated by James Sturm and Joe Sutphin
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“The Russell Moore Show” is a production of Christianity Today
Executive Producers: Erik Petrik, Russell Moore, and Mike Cosper
Host: Russell Moore
Producer: Ashley Hales
Associate Producers: Abby Perry and McKenzie Hill
Director of Operations for CT Media: Matt Stevens
Audio engineering by Dan Phelps
Video producer: Abby Egan
Theme Song: “Dusty Delta Day” by Lennon Hutton
