For more than four decades, Robert Kaplow has built an unconventional writing career. A novelist, longtime English teacher, radio essayist and East Coast lifer, Kaplow has spent his creative life obsessed with language — not just what words say, but how they sound, fade and linger. That obsession has now earned him his first Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay for “Blue Moon,” a wry, intimate biographical dramedy directed by Richard Linklater and starring Ethan Hawke as legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart. With it comes a permanent new prefix: Academy Award nominee.
“It’s nice,” Kaplow says on the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast. “I feel like those words are going to be welded to my name forever. That isn’t a bad thing.”
Listen below!
Kaplow never wrote “Blue Moon” with awards in mind. “I felt it was a good piece of writing,” he says. “I wrote it as carefully as any novel I’d written. Every word mattered to me — not only the words, but the order of the words and the punctuation of the words.” That novelist’s precision is embedded in every beat of the screenplay, which values rhythm and implication over exposition.
The nomination marks a late-career milestone for Kaplow, 71, who never chased Hollywood in the traditional sense. He remained rooted in New Jersey, taught English for more than 30 years at Summit High School, wrote several novels and now serves as publisher of his local newspaper, the Metuchen Times. All the while, he quietly developed screenplays that favored character over spectacle. “Blue Moon,” which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last February, fits squarely in that mold: a portrait of Hart’s final days, told not as a cradle-to-grave chronicle but as a compressed emotional reckoning.
“It was freezing in Berlin,” Kaplow recalls. “But that was the first time I had ever seen the movie with an audience. What surprised me was hearing so much laughter in the room. I didn’t expect that.” The response affirmed something central to Kaplow’s conception of Hart — that comedy was not optional. “He made his living being the smartest guy in the room, the funniest guy in the room,” Kaplow says. “If you’re going to have his voice in the film, it had to be that.”
Yet the humor masks devastation. Beneath Hart’s wit lies abandonment, aging and the collapse of a 25-year partnership. The screenplay resists biopic convention, favoring restraint over grandeur and small behavioral choices over sweeping declarations.
That approach was sharpened through Kaplow’s collaboration with Hawke, whom he describes as both generous and relentlessly curious. Hawke arrived daily with ideas, often prefaced with self-deprecation. “He would come in saying, ‘This may be the worst idea ever, but …’ and then have 20 ideas — most of them really good,” Kaplow says. Hawke suggested restoring a cut monologue about the origins of “Blue Moon” to close the film, delivered as the camera drifts away from Hart at the bar. “This is a character who can’t stop talking,” Kaplow says. “Even when he’s been injured beyond belief, his instinct is still to be entertaining, to hold court.”
Hawke’s rigor extended to the most minor physical details. During early rehearsals of a pivotal coatroom scene, Kaplow recalls flagging that Hawke was touching his scene partner too often. “This guy is terrified of being physically repellent to her,” Kaplow told him. Hawke adjusted instantly. “In one second, he internalized it,” Kaplow says. “That’s transformation.”
On Jan. 22, 2026, Kaplow watched the Oscar nominations alone in his New Jersey home, fully expecting disappointment. “I thought I was going to eat the disappointment in private,” he admits. Instead, his name was called first. “I was astounded and delighted,” he says. “That somebody took the trouble to watch the film — and recognize there was some good writing going on here.”
For a writer who spent decades believing much of his work vanished into the ether, the recognition feels less like validation than revelation. “You think half the things you say just go into a black hole,” Kaplow says. “And so much of it didn’t.”
He’s working on two projects right now. “We’ll see which one takes flight.”
Read excerpts from his interview below, which has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Was the film always conceived as a comedy?
I had a central character who had to be very funny and very entertaining. Lorenz Hart made his living being the smartest guy in the room, the funniest guy in the room, the most playful with language. If you’re going to have his voice in the film, it had to be that. But there’s also a subtext of loss. It’s the end of a 25-year friendship, the end of a lot of things. I was trying to navigate that line — him being funny and resilient, while sensing that just beneath the surface his heart is being annihilated.
How did you pitch the film to Richard Linklater?
Thank God I never had to pitch the film. Richard and I had worked together before on “Me and Orson Welles.” We were talking on the phone one day, and he asked what I was working on. I said I was writing about the last days of Lorenz Hart. He said, “I’m really interested in Lorenz Hart. Could I read that?” That was the pitch.
When did Ethan Hawke become part of the conversation?
I remember seeing Ethan once standing his ground in a room full of men who were all taller than he was, almost like a prizefighter. I’d already written a draft of the script, and I thought, this guy could play Lorenz Hart. Later, Richard showed him the script. We met for coffee in New York, talked for about an hour, and he hadn’t said whether he wanted to do it. Finally, I asked, “Do you think you could act this part?” He said, “I could act the fuck out of it.” That told me everything.
How much of Hart’s inner life was written directly into the script?
It’s there, but not spelled out. I didn’t put it in stage directions. Sometimes a line ends in an ellipsis instead of a period, because something is going on in his head. Ethan brought a tremendous amount to that. He was always asking why Hart says something, what he’s avoiding, what’s really hurting him.
The coatroom scene is devastating but restrained. How did you approach writing it?
I knew it was going to be the big scene. It runs about 14 minutes, which is a nervy thing to do. The challenge was having her tell him the truth without wanting to devastate him. One word mattered — “How do you mean?” instead of “What do you mean?” One sounds naive. The other sounds like someone thinking through how to say something painful.
What was going through your mind on nomination morning?
I was alone in the house watching on television. I fully expected to absorb the disappointment privately. Michael Barker, head of Sony Pictures Classics, had told me it was a long shot, but not impossible, which I assumed meant “impossible.” When my name was called first, I was astounded and delighted that someone took the trouble to watch the film and recognize the writing.
What has surprised you most about the response?
I’ve written novels and worked for NPR for years, and that work felt invisible compared to this. Suddenly, I was hearing from people I hadn’t spoken to in decades. Former students wrote saying they remembered learning about Lorenz Hart in my English class. As a teacher, you assume half of what you say disappears into a black hole. It turns out some of it didn’t.
You’ve stayed rooted in New Jersey your entire life. Why?
It’s in my DNA. I was born in Newark, raised in Westfield and now live in Metuchen. I’m about 40 minutes from Manhattan and 40 minutes from Asbury Park. There’s a humility to New Jersey — you work hard, and if success comes, that’s great. If not, you’re still working for the joy of the work.
What makes Ethan Hawke such a special collaborator?
His generosity. He loved this script and came in every day with ideas, always prefaced with humility. He never strong-armed me to change a line. He wanted to understand the character at the deepest level — why Hart says something, why he moves the way he does, what’s motivating him emotionally. That kind of commitment is rare, and it’s transformational.
Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, hosted by Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta and Michael Schneider, who also produces, is your one-stop source for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each episode, “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives, discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines, and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts.
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