Me and domestic goddess Uma

Ethan Hawke doesn't like us Brits. Or at least, he doesn't like the way his fellow Americans are so quick to hail British actors as the best. In fact, he seems positively incensed, hardly pausing for breath as he launches into a somewhat uncharacteristic tirade, only a few weeks after Gwyneth Paltrow praised all things British - and particularly the London arts scene - in this newspaper.

"You know, Americans are such Anglophiles," he drawls. "It just astounds me that for a country so small, the percentage of British actors nominated for the Academy Awards every year is so large. I mean, you guys are abusing us. Americans have this tendency to just lurve British actors and I feel that we don't celebrate our own actors in the same way.

"I mean, Jude Law is one of my favourite actors and I love Ewan McGregor, too, but it does amaze me that American directors think they're soooo wonderful that none of us Yanks can compete. Oh, and I tell you what really bugs me is when they get English actors to put on American accents. Oh yeah!" he says, lighting up a cigarette and warming quickly to his theme.

"Jude right now is doing a film where he's playing a guy in the Civil War (Cold Mountain, directed by Anthony Minghella). What the hell does Jude Law know about the Civil War? They've got a British director, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman - an Aussie - doing a film about the Civil War and you think to yourself, give me a break! You've got Mel Gibson in The Patriot and it's like, what? Go do Gallipoli again, please. Whenever I get offered a part that has me speaking with an English accent, I say, 'Go and hire Jude!'"

You can understand why some directors are nervous about the prospect of working with Ethan Hawke. Not that he's big for his boots or prima-donna-ish, but, clearly, he has opinions, and "Having Opinions" is not something that goes down altogether brilliantly with directors. Is he too bright for his own good?

"Well, huh, directors don't like to feel they're collaborating with actors on a film. They prefer to put everyone in their place. And yeah, being bright isn't a good quality to have."

Poor Ethan. This he says good-naturedly and without malice, and yet you can't help but feel how much further Hawke's career could have gone had he been a touch more malleable and, well, frankly a bit more dim. Roles in films such as Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites, Great Expectations (with Gwyneth Paltrow) and Training Day, which won him an Oscar nomination earlier this year, have established him as a hero but of the some-what-unshavenand-could-do-with-a-wash variety.

He may have a Hollywood wife, in the shapely form of Uma Thurman, but he's never been part of the big Hollywood gang, and, although his considerable acting talents have never been disputed, we haven't seen him soar to the heights of stardom - a result, no doubt, of the 31-year-old choosing roles for their layers of interest rather than for their out-and-out box-office potential.

And just to make matters worse, he's a writer, too, and a very good one at that. His first novel, The Hottest State, came out six years ago to largely good reviews. Newsweek acknowledged it as "one of the least pretentious things ever written by someone with a goatee", which as compliments for an actor-who-writes-novels go, is quite something. His latest novel, Ash Wednesday, has also been very well received, a state of affair guaranteed to confuse Hollywood yet further.

Is he disillusioned with Hollywood then? "Not disillusioned, but the more you work in movies, the harder it is to be swept away by one. You can get jaded, so it's good for me to write books because it rekindles my passion for acting. I do act a lot less than my contemporaries.