While filming "Dead Poets Society" he auditioned for what would be his next film, 1989's comedy drama "Dad", where he played Ted Danson's son and Jack Lemmon's grandson. Hawke's next film, 1991's "White Fang", brought his first leading role. The film, an adaptation of Jack London's novel of the same name, featured Hawke as Jack Conroy, a Yukon gold hunter who befriends a wolfdog (played by Jed). According to "The Oregonian", "Hawke does a good job as young Jack ... He makes Jack's passion for White Fang real and keeps it from being ridiculous or overly sentimental." He appeared in Keith Gordon's "A Midnight Clear" (1992), a well-received war film based on William Wharton's novel of the same name. In the survival drama "Alive" (1993), adapted from Piers Paul Read's , Hawke portrayed Nando Parrado, one of the survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes.