now he's directed "the last movie stars," a documentary about paul newman and joanne woodward. >> it's i'm trying to ask all my friends to make these audios come alive, i'm trying to turn it into kind of like a play with voices, a community looking back socks that is what i am doing here with you, and sammy rockwell is going to read the director of cool hand luke. >> joanne woodward. karen allen is playing joanne's step mother. >> scott "hamilton" is going to read the director of the sting. >> vincent den ovaryo, george clooney agreed to read paul. please welcome back to "the late show," ethan hawke! >> there you go. >> hey ethan. >> that's so nice. i appreciate it, you guys. >> thanks for being here. >> nice to see you. >> stephen: always lovely to you have here. i got to ask you about this documentary, tell us a little bit about what is happening in that clip there. because i think as great as an actor as you are, we don't necessarily associate you with paul newman and joanne woodward. and i'm curious how this came to be and what the heck is actually happening in that clip. >> that i

lora linney, joanne woodward. zoe kazan, and hamilton the director of stage.uper friends to help you? >> right. well, luckily, you know, nobody was doing anything, they had to pick up the phone, you know. and i also think that a lot of my friends and other artisans and craft people who work in the movie business, everybody's got some secret fascination with paul and joanne. they've got some story where they met them. or some moment that was important to them. some movie that meant something to them. i think the romantics in all of us want to know how they did it, how they were able to share their lives with one another and have a lifelong love affair. so, i think we're all a little curious. >> i want to ask you about you, since we have you here, in a recent interview, you said that you were at the beginning of your last act as an actor. what does that mean? >> well, don't worry, it's going to be a long act. i highly recommend you get your coffee. i'm not going anywhere. i didn't mean it like that. i meant when i started acting i was 13 years old. that was a ce

. >> you know what i love about this, because we hear about the love story of paul newman and joanne woodwardso he and joanne hired their best friend, whose name is stewart stern. he wrote rebel without a cause and a lot of good movies he was a really close family friend, and they did interviews with everybody in paul and joanne's life. then paul abandoned the memoir and the tape and they had them transcribed. so i got my actor friends to reenact these interviews, and basically the spine of this documentary is the lost interviews of their closest friends talking about them. >> i thought what was fascinating about the memoir, is i didn't realize that paul newman had been married before that he had a wife and a family when he met joanne woodward. >> yeah, a lot of people don't know that this beautiful marriage was born out of -- you know, from scandal. >> yeah. >> but paul's generation it was a tough time i mean, he came back from world war ii as soon as he arrived, he went to do a play and fell madly in love, and before he knew it, he had three kids with somebody he didn't know very well, and

laura linney's going to do joanne woodward. zoe kazan is going to play paul's first wife. to read the director of "the sting." vincent d'onofrio's going to do john huston. george clooney's agreed to read paul ♪ >> so we're having fun kind of revisiting the generation before us >> seth: welcome back to "late night. we're here with ethan hawke, everybody. [ cheers and applause that was a clip from "the last movie stars. so, one, you're making this during a pandemic. but that's not the only reason you reach out to your group of friends who are actors you had another reason that you asked them all to do voice-over work in this >> well, the family had an amazing thing. it was this -- you see it in that clip right there. they had transcriptions of interviews that paul had done to write his own memoir he had had his best friend interview all his closest friends. nannies, co-workers, best friends, everybody that knew them well. but he never wrote the memoir. so these interviews were sitting there. because he got bored with the whole idea once and set them on fire, destroyed them,

. >> paul newman and joanne woodward, quite a couple. a listers before there was an a list.ot a hunch. >> reporter: he's paul newman, with those fierce blue eyes and that flawless face. >> tough luck. >> reporter: with a hard-earned reputation for playing flawed characters. >> don't you ever ask? >> what time is your husband coming home? >> hey, maybe one night this week you can tell why. >> and do what? >> gdancing.epr: she's woodward, the oldest winning oscar of the winner for best actress. >> you got a thin skin is what you want. >> reporter: their passion for their work -- >> the world belongs to meat eaters, and if you have to take it raw, take it raw. >> reporter: and for each ot co >> reporter: lasted half a century. >> sitting here stark naked as the day i was born. does that open any interesting lines of conversation? >> reporter: they were a hollywood anomaly, a happily married couple. but that part of their story is more fable than fact. we'll get to that later. >> they presided over sort of the end of the movies as the universal art form. >> reporter: the remarka

trailing for the upcoming docu-series that's set to follow the relationship between paul newman and joanne woodwarde's 50 years together and george geclooney and laura linney are voicing the actors. >> when they first married, she just won the oscar she's the star and then the trajectory just changed. >> nobody understands anybody else's relationships only the two people who are involved know what binds that relationship together. >> as in all things, you can do anything you want to if you're willing to pay the price >> wow >> okay. i'm so intrigued >> what a great idea. >> it's genius. >> so good all six episodes of the last movie star starts streaming july 21st and ethan hawke is going to stop by ahead of the premiere and pay us a visit in studio 1a. >> that will be good. >>> finally, jessica alba sat down with willie geist it's been ten years since she founded the honest company and now she's looking like what it was like jumping from the world of acting to starting a business. >> there are people who are like, she's a movie star, what does she know about this how is she going to run a company.