Ahead of their 11th movie together, the actor and director discuss musicals, the legacy of Philip Seymour Hoffman and what being bald and 5ft tall does to your flirting skills

‘I like this, it’s good,” Ethan Hawke tells Richard Linklater, midway through a lively digression that has already hopped from politics to the Beatles to the late films of John Huston. “What’s good?” asks Linklater. “All of this,” says Hawke, by which he means the London hotel suite with its coffee table, couch and matching upholstered armchairs; the whole chilly machinery of the international press junket. “I like that we get to spend a couple of days in a room,” he says. “It feels like a continuation of the same conversation we’ve been having for the past 32 years.”

It’s all about the conversation with Linklater and Hawke. The two men like to talk; often the talk sparks a film. The director and actor first met backstage at a play in 1993 (“Sophistry, by Jon Marc Sherman,” says Linklater) and wound up chatting until dawn. The talk laid the ground for what would eventually become Before Sunrise, a star-crossed romance that channelled an off-screen bromance as it sent Hawke and Julie Delpy wandering around mid-90s Vienna, walking and talking and stopping to kiss. “Yeah, that was the moment. That set the tone,” says Linklater, remembering. “Meeting Ethan backstage, then flying out to Vienna.”

Our student theatre group had the bright idea of using actual knives on stage for authenticity. The blade missed my aorta by about a centimetre

As someone committed to my craft, I’ve always believed that the show must go on. An accident in my second year of university took it to new extremes. It was the Exeter University theatre society’s annual play at the Edinburgh fringe and I’d landed the part of Cassius in Julius Caesar. The director decided that instead of killing himself, Cassius would die during a choreographed fight with his rival, Mark Antony. We also chose to use real knives, which sounds absurd, but we wanted to be authentic. The plan was for the actor playing Antony to grab my arm as I held the knife, and pretend to push it behind my back. We must have rehearsed the sequence 50 times.

We were about halfway through our month-long run, performing to a decently sized audience. Dressed in our togas, with the stage dark and moody, we began the fight as usual. Then something went wrong.

How will new tax rates and measures affect pensions, savings, car tax and more? We look into some individual queries

From new tax rates on savings, to a pay-per-mile scheme for electric vehicles, via changes to pension contribution rules – this week’s budget included measures that will have an impact on household finances.

Here are some of the questions people wanted the Guardian to answer after Rachel Reeves sat down:

In the face of multiple crises, disruptive technology and populism, making Britain orderly again is an impossible goal

This Labour government loves rules. Fiscal rules, stability rules, investment rules, immigration rules and rules restricting protests: this government’s first impulse, when faced with the fluidity and chaos of the modern world, is to put in boundaries and try to police them. Keir Starmer, a methodical person as well as a former director of public prosecutions, is so keen on orderliness that in 2022 his close colleague Lisa Nandy called him “Mr Rules”.

There are things to be said for this approach. Many voters have been saying for at least a decade that they want politicians to exert more control over Britain’s erratic trajectory. Meanwhile the recent catastrophic administration of Boris Johnson, with its vast carelessness about Covid deaths, Brexit and immigration, still looms over our politics as a demonstration of what happens when governments have little interest in rules. As tech oligarchs, bond traders, international criminals, and digital and physical viruses increasingly prey on vulnerable people, it can be argued that a libertarian or fiscally loose government is a luxury most Britons can’t afford.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

That ‘once-a-year’ deal might not be as rare as it looks – here’s how to spot the real bargains hiding in the Black Friday chaos (and avoid the scams)

• Do you really need a new TV?
• The best early Black Friday deals on the products we love

It’s a difficult time for people who dislike Americana influencing British culture. Even if you’re able to ignore the culture war sailing across the Atlantic, we now have the double whammy of Thanksgiving and Black Friday being celebrated in the UK.

While the former may only have a small footprint in the UK, the latter is big business. In 2024, Britons spent £3.6bn between Black Friday and the retro-futuristically named Cyber Monday – a 5.2% increase on the previous year, despite (or perhaps because of) the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

Cherries fans wait on word of Semenyo, Gueye’s red card could leave Everton blue and Nuno needs new plans

With Thomas Frank, Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa, Christian Nørgaard and Mark Flekken leaving Brentford in the summer, the Bees looked the established club most likely to go down, thereby allowing a promoted one to stay up. In the event, though, they’ve made a solid start to life under Keith Andrews, more or less alternating wins and losses to sit 13th in the table, five points above the relegation zone. Burnley, on the other hand, find themselves roughly where most people thought they’d be: second-bottom having lost three games in a row. As it happens, they’ve not been that bad, asking difficult questions of more exalted opponents with tidy midfield play, before succumbing to defeat anyway. Ultimately, conceding two goals a game is not sustainable, but it’s worth noting that one of Burnley’s three league victories came against Sunderland, a side whose physical, intense and forward-thinking style is not dissimilar to Brentford’s. If they can get their passing going, they’ve a chance. Daniel Harris

Brentford v Burnley (Saturday 3pm, all times GMT)

Manchester City v Leeds, Saturday 3pm

Sunderland v Bournemouth, Saturday 3pm

Everton v Newcastle, Saturday 5.30pm

Flagship Labour plan to be replaced with six-month threshold after Peter Kyle vows to not let businesses ‘lose’ under new law

A flagship policy that would have given workers the right to claim unfair dismissal after their first day on the job is to be ditched by the government in favour of a six month-threshold.

In a U-turn constituting a direct breach of Labour’s manifesto, the government said it had brokered a deal between six of the country’s biggest business groups and trade union leaders to shake up its plan for the biggest upgrade in employment rights for a generation.

Some say Jeremy Corbyn is too non-committal for project to work, while others blame Zarah Sultana’s combative nature

At an early meeting to set the path for what would become Your Party, participants quickly agreed on one thing: given the cliches about leftwingers forever falling out, at all costs they must avoid a descent into factionalism.

Six months on and the Liverpool venue hosting this weekend’s inaugural Your Party conference has been warned to expect potential disruption, including stage invasions by disgruntled members representing particular wings. Extra security guards have been hired.

Firefighters comb through high-rises with as many as 200 people still missing, officials announce

• Anger swelling in Hong Kong over deadliest fire in more than 70 years

• How the Hong Kong fire unfolded – visual guide

The death toll from the Hong Kong apartment complex fire that began on Wednesday has risen to 128 with as many as 200 missing, officials have said, as rescue operations were declared over.

Firefighters were combing through the high-rises on Friday morning, attempting to find anyone alive after the massive fire that spread to seven of eight towers in one of the city’s deadliest ever blazes.

In a social media post sent late on Thanksgiving, US president said he would ‘end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens’ following Washington DC shooting

Donald Trump has said he will “permanently pause migration from all third world countries,” a day after two national guard members were shot in Washington DC in an attack that has become a political flashpoint in the president’s ongoing crackdown on immigration.

In a social media post beginning with “a very happy Thanksgiving,” sent after 11pm on Thursday, the US president said his administration would “end all federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens” and remove “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States”.