Ethan Hawke And Uma Thurman's Marriage And Divorce

It's been twenty years since Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman got divorced, but the former Hollywood couple's relationship remains a topic of hot discussion. From the moment they met filming Gattaca in 1997 to their 2003 separation, theirs was a tale of whirlwind romance, public scrutiny, and deep soul-searching.

Now Hawke, in a GQ Hype cover story released earlier this month, is recalling their on-set connection in their own words, revealing just how heady it felt. "Have you ever played Spin the Bottle?" he asked. "There's a certain intimacy to the work that we do. Imaginative intimacy. It's such a high. It feels dangerous and thrilling. It turns the temperature up in your life. It raises the temperature in your life." But as exciting as it was, Hawke acknowledged that being in a relationship under the spotlight of Hollywood was also tricky.

"It's humiliating," he said, referring to the headlines, "It's almost humiliating even when they're saying positive things." The couple married in May 1998, six years after Thurman divorced Gary Oldman. Now 27, Hawke has confessed that perhaps he wasn't fully prepared for marriage at such a young age. "Success when you're young is really overwhelming," he told ELLE in 2013. "The world felt out of control. And I wanted to stop it from spinning so fast. I thought marriage would decrease my variables or something. I was absolutely wrong."

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He openly shared that his brain was still developing and had simply not yet formed a sufficient and mature grasp of the reality of committing to a lifelong partnership at a time in life when he wasn't fully capable of making such a choice. Their love gave birth to two children, and they continue to play an integral role in each other's lives. The couple's first child, Maya Hawke, arrived just two months after their wedding, with son Levon following in 2002. Their domestic life, however, was not able to survive the stresses of celebrity and maturing as a person.

When they announced their breakup in 2003, it came with rumors of infidelity. "Uma and I did not split up over anybody's infidelity," he told 20/20 in 2004. "We had a lot of problems before I ever went to Montreal." This is what Hawke and Thurman think about their relationship now, with nuance and honesty, accepting the excitement and the difficulties of their high-profile romance. Their history is a bittersweet reminder that in the midst of assembly-line perfection, love is human and human love can be insane and perfect and messy.