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What I Learned About Acting, From My Experiences Directing, Is Why So Many Producers And Directors Don't Like Actors. You Go Through All Of This Work Securing A Location, Figuring Out How To Get Electricity There, How To Get Trucks Parked Where They Need To Be, And Where Catering Is Going To Come From. And If The Actors Don't Come Up With Some Magic, It Actually Didn't Matter. That Creates A Lot Of Animosity Towards The Actors.

-Ethan Hawke

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What I Learned About

Ethan Hawke

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What I Learned About Acting, From My Experiences Directing, Is Why So Many Producers And Directors Don't Like Actors. You Go Through All Of This Work Securing A Location, Figuring Out How To Get Electricity There, How To Get Trucks Parked Where They Need To Be, And Where Catering Is Going To Come From. And If The Actors Don't Come Up With Some Magic, It Actually Didn't Matter. That Creates A Lot Of Animosity Towards The Actors.

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Set Designers, Costume Designers, Actors, Writers, Music, That's What Is Beautiful.

I Kill Flies, I Eat Meat, You Know, Whatever.

I Was Being Taken Around By A Press Agent At The Venice Film Festival At Age 18. Was It Fun? Sure. But It Was A Dangerous Path To Be Walking On As Far As Having A Substantive Life. Because The Casualty Rate At The Venice Film Festival For 18-year-olds? High.

Sometimes People, Their Creative Drive Comes From An Energy To Try To Heal Themselves.

I'm Horrified To Admit That I Just Love Salinger. I Was Devastated To Find Out That Other People Feel The Same Way.

Alejandro Amenábar Is A Very Interesting Filmmaker. I Had Really Liked The Others, Which Was A Movie He Made With Nicole Kidman A Few Years Ago. He Made A Very Compelling Case About How Much He Wanted Me To Be In This Movie. Whenever A Really Passionate, Talented Filmmaker Seems To Have An Interest In Me, I Take It Very Seriously Because I Like To Work.

I Have Had So Many Bad Auditions.

I Always Felt That A Marriage Works Best At A Farm... Where You're Together And Everybody Has Clear-cut Roles; They Have Chores, 'you Take Care Of This' And You Know. But It's Hard.

It's Interesting To Get Older And Realize That Part Of Your Job Growing Up In This Profession Is To Help The Next Generation. More And More, With Boyhood And With Ellar Coltrane And With Emma [watson], I Start To See That Role. There's No Better Way. Nobody Wants Advice, So You Can't Really Give It. You Just Have To Try To Wish Them Well On Their Journey.

Time Is What Creates Trust.

I'm Magically Delicious.

One Of The Things That Separates A Good Genre Movie From A Bad Genre Movie, I Always Think, Ironically, Is When You Care About The People. The Dime A Dozen Ones Are Where You Don't Have Any Awareness Of The Character.

With This Sunrise Somehow I Felt I Was Exactly Where I Was Supposed To Be... Have Faith, The Light Seemed To Announce.

I Thought I Was So Much Smarter Than Everybody. And I'm Not.

One Of The Things I Can Do Is To Try To Put Myself In Different Kinds Of Movies And That Kind Of Subtly Changes My Work. By The Time My Obituary Is Written, I Want There To Be A Great Western And A Great Comedy.

The Thing That Really Breeds Career Longevity In This Profession Is Doing Good Work. You Can Make $20 Million A Movie, But Does That Mean You'll Still Have A Job When You're 60? It's A Profession That Eats People Up And Wants Constant Turnaround, So You Have To Dedicate Yourself To Learning And Making The Most Of Whatever Gift You May Have.

The Only Thing I Can Point To Of Why I Survived Is I Have A Family That Loves Me And Never Wanted Any Money From Me.

I Never Thought That I Would Be Labeled Something Like Generation X Because Of That Movie ( Reality Bites ). I Had No Idea Going Into It, And It Wasn't A Label I Could Relate To.

I Take Pleasure In The Little Things. Double Cheeseburgers, Those Are Good, The Sky Ten Minutes Before It Rains,the Moment Your Laugh Turns Into A Cackle. And I Sit Here, And Smoke My Camel Straights, And I Ride My Own Melt.

I Started Acting When I Was 13 Years Old And I Feel Like I Really Admire Actors Who Are These Kind Of Amazing Shape-changing People, That They Almost Can Turn Themselves Into Other People.

Nothing Teaches You Like Getting Leveled. And I Got Leveled In My Early 30s. Nothing Went Exactly The Way I Thought It Would.

I Did This Movie Right After It About The Life Of Chet Baker. It's Called Born To Be Blue. In That Situation, There's A Real Clear Character You're Drawing On. It's A Real Person. It's Really Exciting And Interesting To Do The Research To Figure Out How To Make That A Nuanced, Three-dimensional Human Being.

It Is Quite Rare To Find People Who Are Really Dedicated To A Level Of Excellence. Most Of Us Are Really Quite Lazy Most Of The Time.

My Relationship To Reality Has Been So Utterly Skewed For So Long That I Don't Even Notice It Any More. It's Just My Reality.

It Was When I Was On The Set Of Dead Poets Society.there Was Actor,his Name Was Norman Lloyd. One Day He Took Us All Aside And Said, "you Guys Don't Even Understand What A Powerful Experience You're Having. You Don't Really Understand What A Gift This Is." We Were Going, "what Does He Mean?" It Was That Really Wonderful Opportunities Aren't To Be Taken For Granted. I Often Found That It Had Embedded Itself In My Memory.

It's Difficult To Make Any Kind Of Action Movie That Might Be Unique Or Worth Watching.

I Think It's My Job To Risk Looking Foolish. One Of The Things I've Learned From The Actors I've Worked With Is You Don't Get Something For Nothing. If You Don't Risk Looking Foolish, You'll Never Do Anything Special.

I've Had Several Moments In My Career Where It Seemed Like I Might Not Age Out Of The Bracket The World Wants To Put You In. It's Hard To Keep Growing Up Inside The Performing Arts. It's Very Difficult, And Presents A Lot Of Unique Challenges.

Friends Can Hurt You, But The Possibility Of Pain With Lovers Is So Much Greater Because Your Expectations Are So High. You Don't Ask As Much Of Your Friends.

When I Woke Up I Was Naked. I Have This One Oddball Idiosyncrasy: Sometimes In My Sleep I Take Off All My Clothes.

When You Do 'before Sunset,' You Know While It's A Limited Audience, There Was A Very Small Group Of People That Love 'before Sunrise.' You Feel A Certain Pressure To Make Sure That You Uphold A Level Of Quality That Has Been A Bar. You Set A Bar And You Have To At Least Match It.

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Give Your Heart To Everybody You Meet. The Rest Is Pretense.

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People Are Conditioned To Just You Know, Like, You Know We're Like Little Birdies Going To The Bird Feeder You Know, Or The Little Cows Going To The Salt Lick. We Just Like What We've Seen Before.

My Goal Is To Tell Good Stories. And To Try As Best I Can To Do Something New With Acting. To Learn From The Past And To Be A Relevant Artist. To Make Stories That Are Interesting And Contemporary And To Tell Some Kind Of Emotional Truth.

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I Feel Like Everyone I Meet Is An Imaginary Friend. I Don't Know. The Older I Get The More I Wonder What's Real.

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Whenever Actors Tout Off About Doing Their Own Stunts, It's Always ... They're So Protective Of You That I Always Know These Stunt Guys Are So Good [and] They're Never Going To Put You In Danger. But It's Fun To Do Something Kind Of Exciting, Even Something As Simple As Driving 70 Through A Tunnel With Five Motorcycles ... It Sounds Simple, But It's Actually Really Nerve-wracking.

Some People Burn Out, And Some People Like Clint Eastwood, He Was A Wild, International Movie Star In His 30s, And He's Doing The Best Work Of His Life Now. Go Figure.

There's Only So Often You're Going To Have An Opportunity To Contribute At A High Level And That You Should Be Grateful Whenever One Presents Itself And Not Take It Lightly.

I've Had A Lot Of Experience In Independent Film, And About How To Choose. You've Got To Be Very Discerning About Where You Put Your Five Bucks, And Where You Cut And What You Don't Cut.

And The Joy Of My Job - And It's Really True - Is That It's Constantly Evolving And Changing.

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It's So Hard For Every Young Person, Trying To Figure Out The Adult You Want To Be.

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You Need To Be A Good Screen Partner. It's Very Meaningful To Me To Be A Part Of Great Acting Performances.

I Don't Know What Has Happened To Movies, But Lately Every Movie Is At Least 20 Minutes Too Long. It Used To Be That If You Were Three Hours Long It Was Because It Was Epic - A Movie About Gandhi; Something With Very Important Subject Matters.

The Kindest Compliments I Have Ever Heard Are When Cops Tell Me Training Day And Assault On Precinct 13 Inspired Them To Become Cops. The Funniest Compliments I Have Ever Heard Are When People Tell Me That 'i Love Your Band Sugar Ray.

And The Best Films Feel Like A Fist Punching You In The Solar Plexus And All Elements Of The Filmmaking Process - The Acting, The Design, The Cinematography, The Music, Is All Working To One End.

I Got To Work With Robert Deniro Once And It Was A Strange Experience. Gwyneth Paltrow And I Were Doing Great Expectations Movie Together And We Were Complaining About What A Mediocre Film Experience It Was. Deniro Showed Up On Set And All Of A Sudden The Director Got Better, The Director Of Photography Got Better - Everybody Got More Interested And Excited. Deniro Isn't Waiting For Other People To Create The Environment That He Wants, He Brings It Along With Him.

The Older I Get, The More Obvious It Is That You're Not Really In Control Of Your Life, You're A Part Of A Larger Wave, No Matter Who You Are.

Control Of Your Life

Whenever A Really Passionate, Talented Filmmaker Seems To Have An Interest In Me, I Take It Very Seriously Because I Like To Work.

In Fact, I Think My Life Is Always Going To Be Difficult, Because I Am Trying To Do Something... "original" Is A Big Word. It's Kind Of Pathetic, But I Have To Love What I'm Doing.

The Thing That Makes A Great Genre Movie Is One That's Not Just Entertainment, Not Just Horror Or Sci-fi Or Whatever. The Ones I Love Are The Genre Pictures With Some Subversive Message Underlying It All.

In New York, You've Got Donald Trump, Woody Allen, A Crack Addict And A Regular Joe, And They're All On The Same Subway Car.

Happiness Is In The Doing Not In Getting What You Want.

Getting What You Want

At Every Turn, When Humanity Is Asked The Question, 'do You Want Temporary Economic Gain Or Long-term Environmental Loss, Which One Do You Prefer,' We Invariably Choose The Money.

I Remember Being A Kid And Sleeping Over At My Friend's House And Staying Up Late And Watching 'nosferatu.' Vampire Movies Are Supposed To Be Secret And Bad. They Should Be Rated R.

If You Can Channel The Best Part Of You That Is Bigger Than Yourself, Where It’s Not About Your Ego And Not About Getting Ahead, Then You Can Have Fun And You Aren’t Jealous Of Others. You See Other People's Talent As Another Branch Of Your Own. You Can Keep It Rooted In Joy. Life Is Long And There Are Plenty Of Opportunities To Make Mistakes. The Point Of It All Is To Learn.

Sometimes People Save The Best Part Of Themselves For Their Art.

The Woodstock Film Festival Is Among The Finest Of A Dying Breed: A Festival That Isn’t Trying To Sell You Anything, But Simply And Beautifully Celebrating The Art & Craft Of Filmmaking.

Right Now The Only People I Can Really Fall In Love With Are People Who Don't Really, Truly Want Me Around. Now Why Do I Do That?

Falling In Love

My Job - And It's Really True - Is That It's Constantly Evolving And Changing. When I Was Doing The Chet Baker Movie I Was Obsessed With Playing The Trumpet, And To My Absolute Shock I Haven't Picked The Trumpet Up Since We Wrapped. It Was So Much Work. I Thought I Was Going To Keep Playing The Rest Of My Life, 'cause It Was Fun, It's Just A Lot Of Work. And It's A Really Unique Job That Exposes You To A Lot.

My Favorite Stories Are Human, So I'm Always Looking For...

I Did This Movie, Predestination, And It's One Of My Favorite Movies I've Ever Made, Because Sci-fi Really Lets You Talk About Ideas In A Way That's Not Pretentious.

Directing Is Like Putting Together A Collage.

Good Genre Movies Are A Little Bit Like Trying To Write A Haiku. There Are Certain Things That You Have To Do To Fulfill The Audience's Expectations, But Inside That, You Have Complete Freedom To Talk About Whatever You Want. Who Wants To See A Movie About Gun Violence In America And Class? But, If You Set It In This Terrifying, Fun, Roller Coaster Ride Of A Movie, You Can Talk About Whatever You Want. That's Been The Game That Genre Movies Play, When They Do It Well.

I Don't Have A Lot Of Experiences Like This Where Every Time I Thought I Had A Good Idea It Was Totally Wrong. I Had To Give In Completely And Just Try To Make The Movie Alejandro Amenábar Was Trying To Make.

When You Make A Movie With Alejandro Amenábar, He Very Quickly... It Was Very Clear You're Kind Of Operating In His Dream Universe.

'brooklyn's Finest,' This Is The Kind Of Movie That's Why I Want To Be An Actor, To Tell Real-life Stories. This Is Where I Feel My Job Is, To Interpret Life.

It Is Very Difficult For Any Couple Who Are Married If Both People Are Ambitious. I Don't Know If It's Just Too Hard To Be Married To A Woman That Wants To Be A Movie Star.

There Is No Trick To Writing A Believable Love Story, A Heartbreaking Scene Or Real-sounding Dialogue. All You Need Is To Tell The Truth. It’s Always Heartbreaking.

Have This Chet Baker Movie Coming Out And In That Situation, I Went Down The Rabbit Hole Studying Chet Baker And Being Obsessed With The Period And The Music And The Relationships And The Dynamic, And Everything, Drug Addiction. There Was So Much I Wanted To Get At To Kind Of Get At The Truth. With Regression, I Was Certainly In Alejandro's [amenabar] Hands.

I Enjoyed Meeting Emma [watson]. I Have A Soft Spot In My Heart For Child Actors Growing Up. I Know How Hard That Is. Having Gone Through That Experience Myself, I Have A Lot Of Sensitivity To It. For Lack Of A Better Word, I Just Feel Like I Love These Kids, And I Want Them All To Grow Up And Love Themselves, And Not Get Caught Up In The Wrong Things, And To Learn All The Different Things This Profession Has To Give, And To Understand It.

I Can't Tell You How Many Times In The '90s I'd Meet Somebody, We'd Be Having A Nice Time, And They'd Sigh And Go, 'this Is Exactly Like Before Sunrise.' And I'd Have To Get Up And Leave.

Read. It Makes You More Intelligent. It’s That Simple. We All See The Universe Through The Tiny Keyhole Of Our Own Eyes, And Every Book Is Another Keyhole From Which You Can Gaze.

It Was Fantastic To Be On The Set Again With Denzel (washington) And Antoine (fuqua) And Then To Have The Situation Be So Different. We Weren't Making A Sequel To Training Day. We Were In The Middle Of The Desert Riding Around On Some Horses.

I Have Totally Hitched My Wagon To The Horse Of Storytelling, And The Idea That None Of Us Know Why We're Born, Or Why We're Gonna Die, Or What We're Planted Here, Or What's On The Other Side Of The Galaxy, Or When Time Began, Or When Time End. The Whole Nature Of Reality Is Pretty Up For Grabs, Really.

For Me, The Real Goal Is To Integrate. The Thing That I'm Most Happy With Is The Fact That I've Been Able To Keep Doing All Of It - To Keep Writing, And To Keep Acting In Movies, And To Keep Acting On The Stage, To Keep Directing Plays. I Find That They Feed Each Other, And That I Learn About Acting From Directing And I Learn About Writing From Acting.

Few Years Ago I Did A Movie, Good Kill, About Drone Pilots And For Four Or Five Months I'm Obsessed With The Air Force.

Nightmares Are A Strange Thing. Your Worst Fear Is Sometimes Something You Enjoy Thinking About, For Some Strange Reason. I Don't Know Why That Is, But It's Some Kind Of Fantasy That People Play Out. "what Would I Do To Protect My Children? I'd Do Anything." And Then, You Watch It Play Out. I'm Petrified Of Such A Thing.

The Idea That A Film Is Created In The Editing Room - It's Only A Certain Kind Of Movie That's Made In The Editing Room And It's Not One That I Really Want To See.

When I See Lionel Messi Play Soccer, He Lets The Game Come To Him. He Lets The Game Unveil Itself To Him, Then Like A Lion He Eats The Whole Thing.

I Love Working On Scripts. I Love Coming Up With Ideas About What People Would Dress Like Or Talk Like. I Love All That.

If I Do Three Movies In A Year, I Don't Feel Like Acting Ever Again.

I Auditioned For Robert Redford Once And I Was So Starstruck I Couldn't Even Speak. I Had A Mic Wire At A Screen Test Clipped To Me And Then I Got Kind Of Nervous And I Paced In A Circle And Then Took A Step And Tripped And Fell On My Face. You Just Have To Forgive Yourself And Keep Going On.

It Was A Really Strange Experience. It Was Very Creative For Alejandro Amenábar. It Was Almost Like It Was The Most I Ever Felt Like I Was Helping Someone Paint. They Had A Very Clear Idea Of What They Wanted It To Look Like, Sound Like, Be Like. So, There Was No Operating Outside The Box. The Only Way To Help Him Was To Try To Really Be A Part Of His Imagination And Try To Make It Happen. He's A Super Kind And Loving Person. So, You Wanted To Help Him. It Just Was None Of My Normal Ways Of Helping A Director Work At All. So, It Was A Unique Experience For Me That Way.

Helping Someone

I'm A Huge Luc Besson Fan. The Fifth Element, I Just Loved That Movie. Luc Cast Me To Play A Small Part In It, And So I Did, Because I Love All His Movies Actually - The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita, Léon: The Professional. His Movies Are So Wonderful. It's Just Fun To Be In It And For It To Be A Sci-fi Movie.

I Remember Staying Up All Night Waiting To See The First Screening Of Cape Fear Because You Knew That Every Time Robert Deniro Had A Performance It Was Going To Be Revelatory. Then Deniro Hit This Place, He Seemed Like He Was Done With The Emotional Cost Of Impaling Himself Like That, And He Dedicated Himself To Comedy.

When You Start Becoming Really Successful, The Demons Start To Tempt You - The Demons Of Vanity And Self Importance, Drug Abuse, The Feelings Of Fraudulence. But, It's Also A Thrill. That's What I Found Weird.

It Was Never In My Dreams To Make My Personal Life Anybody Else's Business.

I Think That If You Walk Through This Life And I End Up Being A Bad Father, Then It Won't Matter Anything Else I Achieved In My Life. It Will All Be Irrelevant.

Time Is So Much A Part Of What Makes You Close To People.

In Your Mid-twenties, The Paint Is Still Wet On Who You Are.

I Really Did Regression To Work With Alejandro [amenabar]. I Found Him Very Interesting. His Movie, The Others, Is One Of The Better Scary Movies Of The Last Period Of Time.

I'd Really Rather That Nobody Had A Gun, And Then Nobody Would Have To Worry About It. That Would Be More My Theory. In America, There's This Knee-jerk Response That More Walls And More Guns Make People Safer, And I'm Entirely Suspect Of That Way Of Thinking.

Don't You Find It Odd," She Continued, "that When You're A Kid, Everyone, All The World, Encourages You To Follow Your Dreams. But When You're Older, Somehow They Act Offended If You Even Try.

As A Young Man... You Don't Know Anything About Yourself. And Add On To That, You're On The Cover Of Magazines. People Are Interviewing You About What You Think. You Feel Like A Real Phony.

I've Always Been Drawn To The Best Writing That I Can Find. I Don't Care If It's In Movies Or Theater Or Whatever - If You Want To Be In Front Of An Audience, You Have To Do Writing You Believe In.

Its Difficult To Do A Genre Film Well, And It Doesnt Matter If Youre Talking Vampire Movies Or Dawn Of The Dead Or The Thing Or Escape From New York. Those Kind Of Movies, They Understand What The Old-school B-movie Is Supposed To Be, They Get The Throwback Of It.

Often You See A Famous Actor Who Says They Produced Something, When All They Did Was Claim To Have An Idea At A Dinner Party And Make Three Phone Calls.

The Constant Buzz And Pressure And Noise And Static Of The Internet, And The Way It Makes Young People Feel Makes It Difficult To Grow Up And Develop The Way One Might Want To.

My Process Differs... My Process For A Richard Linklater Film Is Very Different Than A Process For Training Day.

Emma Watson Is My Kids' Favorite Actor On The Planet. They Never Took Me More Seriously Than When I Was Working With Her.

We're Fascinated By Things That Scare Us, And One Of The Things That Scares Us Is Violence. Violence Exists. It's A Real Part Of Our Lives. We Are Obsessed With What We're Scared Of, But It Certainly Doesn't Define Us.

To Get To Be Somebody Who Gets To Love What They Do For A Living, That's So Rare, And So There Must Be Some Kind Of Price You Have To Pay.

If You Study The History Of Mankind, It Seems To Be A History Of Violence. Certainly The History Of Art, Whether You Look At Paintings Or Movies Or Plays Or Whatever, Is Just A Litany Of Murder And Death.

Depression Is A Real Demon In The Woods For A Lot Of Creative People, You Know? It's Part Of What The Documentary Is Trying To Be About For Me, Finding Balance, Where The Beauty That Is Attainable In The Creative Arts Can Be Matched With The Scratchy Roughness Of Regular Life.

Everyone Has To Pay Their Child Support, And No Matter If You're A Hollywood Actor Or Anyone Else, It's Always A Little Bit More Than You Want To Pay.

It Just Makes Sense To Remember Gratitude And The Place That Gratitude Should Have In Your Life, And That None Of Us Are Owed These Wonderful Experiences, And We Should Always Make The Best Of Them.

But The Truth Is, I've Never Wanted To Be A Movie Star - And I've Been Pretty Clear About That.

You Don't Need Other People To Affirm That You're A Valuable Person.

If You Say To Yourself, Okay, I Will Not Self-destruct. I Don't Have To Be The Most Talented Person. I Don't Have To Be Everybody's Best Friend, I Don't Have To Be Liked, I Don't Have To Be Successful, Well, One Thing I Will Not Do Is Self-destruct. If You Take That Out, Your Chances For Success Just Went Up Like 800 Percent.

The More Kind Of Head Trippy Sci-fi. I Always Like That. I Was A Big 'twilight Zone' Freak.

Sometimes In The Life Of An Actor You're Not Getting Offered Any Jobs That Speak To You. The Trouble With Acting Is That You're Only As Good As Your Opportunities.

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