Ethan Hawke Discusses a New Phase in His Career

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You’ve called success kind of a sort of a formaldehyde. I mean, (inaudible) school in my biology lessons, formaldehyde is something that preserved —

ETHAN HAWKE: Yes, it keeps your stagnant.

AMANPOUR: Yes. So it keeps you stagnant.

HAWKE: The second you’re successful at something, you don’t want to change, right? But to be alive, you’ve got to change. But as soon aspeople start handing you money and telling you you’re important and telling you you’re fabulous for being this thing, well you better not grow because maybe you screw it up. But I often – you often seen people in their – whenever they experience success – look, I was – I’ve been watching this since I was a little kid, right, and I wanted to stay alive. A lot of the people who started acting when I did, you know, they lose their way. And a lot of it is because if you get too much attention or told you’re special and you believe it, and for a second you forget that everyone’s special, right, which is very easy to do when you’re 23 or 24 or 25, right, but it can throw the whole trajectory of your life off because you’ve got to grow and you’ve got to change and –

AMANPOUR: And take risks and do different things. Can I just play a clip from Dead Poets Society? Let’s just play this.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Say the first thing that pops into your head even if it’s total gibberish.

HAWKE: A sweaty-toothed madman.

WILLIAMS: Good God boy, there’s a poet in you after all. There, close your eyes, close your eyes, close them. Now describe what you see.

HAWKE: I closed my eyes –

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HAWKE: – and this image float beside me.

WILLIAMS: A sweaty-toothed madman.

HAWKE: A sweaty-toothed madman with a stare that pounds my brain.

WILLIAMS: Oh, that’s excellent. Now give him action. Make him do something.

HAWKE: His hands reach out and choke me.

WILLIAMS: That’s excellent, wonderful, wonderful.

HAWKE: And all the time he’s mumbling.

WILLIAMS: What’s he mumbling?

HAWKE: Mumbling truth, truth like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold.

WILLIAMS: Forget them, forget them. Stay with the blanket. Tell me about that blanket.

HAWKE: You push it, stretch it. It will never be enough. You kick at it, beat it. It will never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying to the moment we leave dying, it will just cover your face as you wail and cry and scream.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

AMANPOUR: All these years later, what does it mean to you. I mean, it was your breakthrough, obviously.

HAWKE: It was. It was the first day I ever acted. I mean, I’d acted before, but I hadn’t lost myself in a performance, and it’s an amazing feeling. You know, people love to make acting about, “oh, isn’t she special? Isn’t he beautiful? Isn’t he wonderful?” And, you know, you see them on an award show or something and it seems like it becomes a celebration of self. But acting at its best, at its most true, I mean, the flame that most of who do it are chasing is losing yourself, right? Being in service of a story other than your own story and feeling connection and realizing that your life is not so unique, that you share with the most intimate feelings with other people, and that’s profound.