Long before his fifth Oscar nomination, Ethan Hawke’s first acting award came in the form of a bong.
Not a plaque. Not a medal. A glass bong from High Times.
While promoting Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s new film in which Hawke plays Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, the actor paused to thank his longtime collaborator and dropped a memory that says more about his career than any awards-season talking point.
“My first acting award I ever won was a bong from High Times Magazine,” Hawke told The Hollywood Reporter, recalling his performance in Tape, which was recognized as the “best stoned performance of the year.” Then he added something even more telling: “Somehow having it be a Stony validates my whole youth.”
That was not a throwaway joke. It was a time capsule.
The Stonys Were Not a Gag
In the early 2000s, High Times ran its own parallel awards universe: the Stony Awards. It was a night where cannabis culture, independent film and music collided without asking permission from the Academy.
Steve Bloom’s 2002 coverage of the third annual Stonys reads like a dispatch from a different Hollywood. Snoop Dogg lit up the room and told the crowd, “HIGH TIMES—y’all real for making this awards show.” George Clinton was there. Ice-T was in the building. The Cannabis Cup Band played past midnight.
And in the middle of that, Hawke won Best Actor for Tape.
When he took the stage, Bloom reported, Hawke said, “This is the first award I ever won in my life.” Then he looked around the room and acknowledged what it meant. A Stony, he said, somehow validated his youth.
It is hard to imagine a more High Times moment. An indie actor, in a cowboy shirt, accepting a bong as a trophy …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
