Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Back at the end of June, I was supposed to do a phone interview with Ethan Hawke, an actor whose work I've long admired. He was on the verge of releasing a work he'd directed called THE HOTTEST STATE, a movie I enjoyed a great deal and most other critics took a large dump upon. It happens. But there was a miscommunication about time zones (he was in New York; I was in Chicago), and I ended up missing his call. I'm pretty that just having flown back from Austin from Harry's hastily put together Half-Ass-a-Thon had something to do with the mix up. But it kind of bummed me out, because I had so many questions for Hawke about his film, which was based on his semi-autobiographical novel. I had just assumed that he'd think I was a flake and never want to speak to me again (more than likely, if I did ever get the chance to interview him again, he wouldn't even remember the incident).
Flash forward to a couple weeks ago. Hawke is in an awesome new Sidney Lumet film called BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOUR DEAD. In it, he costars with Philip Seymour Hoffman as his older and much smarter brother, and the two get involved in a crime that spins out of control from the instant it's conceived. Hawke's character is the dim bulb of the family; he needs things explained to him twice and the enormity of the situation is clearly more than he can handle. Hawke and Hoffman are nothing short of combustible when they're on screen together.
Hawke has been in the spotlight since he was a youngster. You may remember him from his first film EXPLORERS, but more than likely you first spotted him as the eager student in DEAD POETS SOCIETY. He permanently registered with me in REALITY BITES because I truly wanted to kill his character, because I'd known guys like him in college and thought they were Class A douche bags. His collaborations of Richard Linklater (BEFORE SUNRISE/SUNSET; THE NEWTON BOYS; WAKING LIFE; TAPE; FAST FOOD NATION) are like comfort food to me; I've loved his genre work (GATTACA; ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13); and he's got a solid track record of picking worthy project over the years (GREAT EXPECTATIONS; TRAINING DAY; and LORD OF WAR to name a few). I was also a fan of his last film as a director, CHELSEA WALLS. But on this day, we were together to talk about BEFORE THE DEVIL and a few upcoming works of interest (and maybe one or two unused questions I still had lying around about HOTTEST STATE). Enjoy…
Capone: Hi Ethan.
Ethan Hawke: How's it going, man?
C: Good. I hesitate to even bring this up because you probably don't even remember this, but we were supposed to talk when you were doing press for THE HOTTEST STATE, and there was a time zone mix up, and I missed your call. Whatever part of that was my fault, I apologize.
EH: I do remember, and I was on such a tight schedule that day that I couldn’t do the interview any other time because I had to leave to go shoot this film in Australia. But whatever; I'm glad we're here now.
C: Right, and I will ask one HOTTEST STATE question later to make up for it. I am always excited when Sidney Lumet gets a film made these days. He's a legend, one of the greatest living directors of crime dramas ever. Do you remember when you were first aware of his films, and how did that feel stepping onto a set to actually make a movie with him?
EH: For some reason, I remember my stepfather--sadly this reveals my age here--he got one of the first VCRs. I was a relatively new thing, and we went to the drugstore to rent a movie, back when you could rent them at the Rite-Aid. They only had about 40 movies, but one of them was PRINCE OF THE CITY. And my stepdad loved that movie, and remember watching it and him telling about this guy Sidney Lumet. “He always does these crime movies, the best!” I remember him telling me about how that movie is really about how one lie turns into two and turns into four and turns into eight, about how lies and sin, how exponentially they grow. So then we got into a little kick, and I watched DOG DAY AFTERNOON, SERPICO, NETWORK, and I've been a fan since then. To be honest, the one that's probably affected me the most as an actor, Al Pacino's performance in DOG DAY AFTERNOON stands as one of the towering achievements in moment-to-moment method acting. It's just breathtaking. I could watch it today. You feel like you can smell his B.O., that's how real it is. So that's how I came to know him.
C: Then when you actually got the chance to work with him, that had to blow your mind a little bit.
EH: Yeah. I remember the script came in the mail with a little letter that said “Philip Seymour Hoffman is thinking about doing this movie with Sidney Lumet.” I thought, this is the best piece of news I've heard in a long time. I'm so sick of people in my profession, whenever they get any heat, they automatically cash out. As soon as they do something good, the next thing they do is play the villain in a Batman movie or something. They try to turn their heat into money as quick as possible. To watch Phil use his moment in the sun to greenlight one of our mentors and put fire back into Sidney Lumet's career, that's such grace. I thought the cinema gods had smiled on this project. You know what I mean? And then I read the script, and I was like, “Holy shit. This is right in Sidney's sweet spot.” I'm not even sure I would have liked the script if it had come with some “insert: nouveau-fabulous director here” attached, because it's black as night. It's so mean, the movie. It's a mean, ornery film. But there's something about knowing that Sidney was going to do it, where you're like, You know what? He'll find the right tone for this. So that was how I came across it, and we proceeded to make the movie.
What's funny about him too is, our first day of rehearsal, if there was any doubt whether or not…I mean, he's 83, but there's one alpha male in the room, and it's Sidney Lumet. He is in charge. He's open to your ideas as long as you shut up when he's ready to move on, you know?
C: When I first started to hear about the film, I remember people's reaction to the idea of you and Philip Seymour Hoffman playing brothers. They maybe weren't buying it on paper. Did that ever come up at any time? It is mentioned in the script where Hoffman's character Andy asks his father, “Am I even your son?”
EH: That line is in the movie. Sidney's thought was that the rest of us looked like the mother. A lot of families do that; that's not uncommon. We just played the reality of that, and I think it's part of Andy's backstory, feeling isolated from the rest of the family.
C: We don't really know he feels that way until late in the film, and it actually explains a lot of his behavior.
EH: It explain a lot, yeah. It explains his mean streak.
C: How would characterize your character Hank? Some people might simplify him as dopey, easily led astray. How did you see him?
EH: You know, he's certainly…the bulb is not at 100 watts. Whatever room Hank's in, it's hard to see; it's a little dim. He's one of these guys who has no idea how to be an adult. Probably one of those things, up until about the age of 22-23, the world worked out pretty well, and then it just became an impossible riddle. He wanted his brother's approval so badly that he hated his brother. He does the crime for his brother's approval, but he hates his brother, and he subconsciously fucks up the crime because he hates him so much. I mean, he wants to be his brother; he wants to be him so bad, he's sleeping with his brother's wife. He's got a really weak moral compass. He actually has a conscience, and it's his undoing. He'd have been better off, like Andy, without one, because he's too weak to do anything without his conscience.
C: It always comforts me to hear when you and Richard Linklater are working together again. What can you tell me about BOYHOOD?
EH: Oh man, I don't want to put undue pressure on him, but it feasibly could be Rick's masterpiece.
C: The concept is unbelievable.
EH: It's just so brilliant. I'm so excited about it. We do a short film once a year, and I've been working with this little kid for five years now. It's just one of those things, all year Rick and I brainstorm some little short story about childhood. I play the kid's father; he shoots some stuff without me, but we shoot these little riffs about taking the kid to school or whatever, but it's going to be this non-narrative film where you see all the moments of childhood. When it starts, the kid is six and when it's over…it starts in first grade and it ends senior year of high school. I'm just growing up with this little kid; he's not so little anymore. What's also going to be amazing is that by the time it comes out in 2013 or something…one of the scenes involves taking him to a Harry Potter book signing. By the time the movie comes out, that'll be a period piece. We really did it. We just went to a Barnes & Noble, and just shot it with all the kids dressed up like Harry Potter. And we did another scene--this is fun about working with Rick--we just walked into the Astrodome. I took the boy to watch Clemens pitch, and we wrote these monologues about what a genius Roger Clemens is. By the time the movie comes out, he'll be in the Hall of Fame; he'll have resigned from the Yankees unceremoniously. Not only is the subject matter hopefully good, delving into watching a human being grow up and how we shift and change, and what we are that's consistent and not consistent, but it's also a movie about time. It's going to be incredible; I'm just excited about it. Every time Rick shoots one that I'm not in, I get disappointed [laughs].
C: One HOTTEST STATE question before you have to go. I really liked the film, and you certainly made being broke and living in New York look very romantic. I tried it for a couple years; I don't remember it being that good…
EH: You just need to hang out with pretty girls.
C: Well if I'd met someone like Catalina Sandino Moreno, I'd probably still be living there. But it was the music that really sent me over the edge and moved me in that film. You had Jesse Harris write all the songs for the film, even though many artists perform his songs. You did this before with CHELSEA WALLS, where you had Jeff Tweedy do the score. You have one musician be the musical voice of the film rather than a selection of songs. Why do you like that better?
EH: Some part of me is always bucked when some fancy-pants soundtrack, where they buy all this great music. I've always felt like you're ripping off…it's like stealing from the Rolling Stones a little bit. You're playing off people's memories of the song. Sometimes it works. For example, DAZED AND CONFUSED is a great example where it opens with “Slow Ride,” and you're like, “Oh, perfect.” And it just brings you right there. But other times, I think it's a cheat. I've felt that falling in love for the first time when you're 21, it's like a mix tape. I don't even like most movies with as much music as I put in THE HOTTEST STATE, but for that movie, I thought that's what that's like. There's always music playing, and because of that I wanted it all to be original. I thought it could operate as something like a Greek chorus, and if I had one authorship, we could sculpt these songs to fit the movie. And Jesse is such a romantic, all his songs are so romantic that he seemed to be the perfect guy to do it. And he's one of the few songwriters I know personally.
C: Quick, yes or no. Julie Delpy is moving forward on her new film THE COUNTESS and your name has been rumored to be attached to that. Is that true?
EH: You know what, they put me on there to try and help raise money for the movie. There really is no part for me. For me, I would love to be in that movie. I think Julie, obviously I believe in her tremendously and I thought her last movie was incredible, breathtaking, and I'm so happy for her. I think this one is going to be even better, the script is even better. Sadly, there is no real part for me.
C: That's too bad. [We'd already been given the sign from the publicist that our time was up and then this happened.]
EH: Hey, I wanted to say something to you. Your site, your review, is one of the few places that really batted for my movie, and I just really appreciated it. I had a couple black nights with that, and the fact that you guys took a little time out to notice the movie really…I really appreciated it.
C: I may have been the only person on the site to actually post a review of it, but I felt like so many critics were just being unbelievably mean about this little love story. I thought it was great.
EH: It's funny, for some reason, there's something about that story and the idea of being a celebrity and doing an autobiographical work…it doesn't bother people when anybody else does it but some people have always resisted it. And I've always felt like the movie didn't get a fair shake because of that, something that won't bother people in 20 years.
C: I don't remember the book getting that kind of reception, but somehow translating it to film, they call it self-indulgent. I didn't think that at all.
EH: If that's self-indulgent, then what's Proust? Then what's Jane Austen. If the whole idea of doing self-reflective art is bad then you've just erased half of our work. Then throw James Baldwin out the window, you know what I mean? I don't mind if people don't like it, but I felt it was just so unfairly attacked. And I appreciated your review and I wanted to say thank you. You can hate the next one, feel free, but I really did appreciate that.
C: Glad to hear that. Just keep making good stuff, and we won't have a problem.
EH: [laughs] Okay man. Bye.
Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
Capone: Hi Ethan.
Ethan Hawke: How's it going, man?
C: Good. I hesitate to even bring this up because you probably don't even remember this, but we were supposed to talk when you were doing press for THE HOTTEST STATE, and there was a time zone mix up, and I missed your call. Whatever part of that was my fault, I apologize.
EH: I do remember, and I was on such a tight schedule that day that I couldn’t do the interview any other time because I had to leave to go shoot this film in Australia. But whatever; I'm glad we're here now.
C: Right, and I will ask one HOTTEST STATE question later to make up for it. I am always excited when Sidney Lumet gets a film made these days. He's a legend, one of the greatest living directors of crime dramas ever. Do you remember when you were first aware of his films, and how did that feel stepping onto a set to actually make a movie with him?
EH: For some reason, I remember my stepfather--sadly this reveals my age here--he got one of the first VCRs. I was a relatively new thing, and we went to the drugstore to rent a movie, back when you could rent them at the Rite-Aid. They only had about 40 movies, but one of them was PRINCE OF THE CITY. And my stepdad loved that movie, and remember watching it and him telling about this guy Sidney Lumet. “He always does these crime movies, the best!” I remember him telling me about how that movie is really about how one lie turns into two and turns into four and turns into eight, about how lies and sin, how exponentially they grow. So then we got into a little kick, and I watched DOG DAY AFTERNOON, SERPICO, NETWORK, and I've been a fan since then. To be honest, the one that's probably affected me the most as an actor, Al Pacino's performance in DOG DAY AFTERNOON stands as one of the towering achievements in moment-to-moment method acting. It's just breathtaking. I could watch it today. You feel like you can smell his B.O., that's how real it is. So that's how I came to know him.
C: Then when you actually got the chance to work with him, that had to blow your mind a little bit.
EH: Yeah. I remember the script came in the mail with a little letter that said “Philip Seymour Hoffman is thinking about doing this movie with Sidney Lumet.” I thought, this is the best piece of news I've heard in a long time. I'm so sick of people in my profession, whenever they get any heat, they automatically cash out. As soon as they do something good, the next thing they do is play the villain in a Batman movie or something. They try to turn their heat into money as quick as possible. To watch Phil use his moment in the sun to greenlight one of our mentors and put fire back into Sidney Lumet's career, that's such grace. I thought the cinema gods had smiled on this project. You know what I mean? And then I read the script, and I was like, “Holy shit. This is right in Sidney's sweet spot.” I'm not even sure I would have liked the script if it had come with some “insert: nouveau-fabulous director here” attached, because it's black as night. It's so mean, the movie. It's a mean, ornery film. But there's something about knowing that Sidney was going to do it, where you're like, You know what? He'll find the right tone for this. So that was how I came across it, and we proceeded to make the movie. What's funny about him too is, our first day of rehearsal, if there was any doubt whether or not…I mean, he's 83, but there's one alpha male in the room, and it's Sidney Lumet. He is in charge. He's open to your ideas as long as you shut up when he's ready to move on, you know?
C: When I first started to hear about the film, I remember people's reaction to the idea of you and Philip Seymour Hoffman playing brothers. They maybe weren't buying it on paper. Did that ever come up at any time? It is mentioned in the script where Hoffman's character Andy asks his father, “Am I even your son?”
EH: That line is in the movie. Sidney's thought was that the rest of us looked like the mother. A lot of families do that; that's not uncommon. We just played the reality of that, and I think it's part of Andy's backstory, feeling isolated from the rest of the family.
C: We don't really know he feels that way until late in the film, and it actually explains a lot of his behavior.
EH: It explain a lot, yeah. It explains his mean streak.
C: How would characterize your character Hank? Some people might simplify him as dopey, easily led astray. How did you see him?
EH: You know, he's certainly…the bulb is not at 100 watts. Whatever room Hank's in, it's hard to see; it's a little dim. He's one of these guys who has no idea how to be an adult. Probably one of those things, up until about the age of 22-23, the world worked out pretty well, and then it just became an impossible riddle. He wanted his brother's approval so badly that he hated his brother. He does the crime for his brother's approval, but he hates his brother, and he subconsciously fucks up the crime because he hates him so much. I mean, he wants to be his brother; he wants to be him so bad, he's sleeping with his brother's wife. He's got a really weak moral compass. He actually has a conscience, and it's his undoing. He'd have been better off, like Andy, without one, because he's too weak to do anything without his conscience.
C: It always comforts me to hear when you and Richard Linklater are working together again. What can you tell me about BOYHOOD?
EH: Oh man, I don't want to put undue pressure on him, but it feasibly could be Rick's masterpiece.
C: The concept is unbelievable.
EH: It's just so brilliant. I'm so excited about it. We do a short film once a year, and I've been working with this little kid for five years now. It's just one of those things, all year Rick and I brainstorm some little short story about childhood. I play the kid's father; he shoots some stuff without me, but we shoot these little riffs about taking the kid to school or whatever, but it's going to be this non-narrative film where you see all the moments of childhood. When it starts, the kid is six and when it's over…it starts in first grade and it ends senior year of high school. I'm just growing up with this little kid; he's not so little anymore. What's also going to be amazing is that by the time it comes out in 2013 or something…one of the scenes involves taking him to a Harry Potter book signing. By the time the movie comes out, that'll be a period piece. We really did it. We just went to a Barnes & Noble, and just shot it with all the kids dressed up like Harry Potter. And we did another scene--this is fun about working with Rick--we just walked into the Astrodome. I took the boy to watch Clemens pitch, and we wrote these monologues about what a genius Roger Clemens is. By the time the movie comes out, he'll be in the Hall of Fame; he'll have resigned from the Yankees unceremoniously. Not only is the subject matter hopefully good, delving into watching a human being grow up and how we shift and change, and what we are that's consistent and not consistent, but it's also a movie about time. It's going to be incredible; I'm just excited about it. Every time Rick shoots one that I'm not in, I get disappointed [laughs].
C: One HOTTEST STATE question before you have to go. I really liked the film, and you certainly made being broke and living in New York look very romantic. I tried it for a couple years; I don't remember it being that good…
EH: You just need to hang out with pretty girls.
C: Well if I'd met someone like Catalina Sandino Moreno, I'd probably still be living there. But it was the music that really sent me over the edge and moved me in that film. You had Jesse Harris write all the songs for the film, even though many artists perform his songs. You did this before with CHELSEA WALLS, where you had Jeff Tweedy do the score. You have one musician be the musical voice of the film rather than a selection of songs. Why do you like that better?
EH: Some part of me is always bucked when some fancy-pants soundtrack, where they buy all this great music. I've always felt like you're ripping off…it's like stealing from the Rolling Stones a little bit. You're playing off people's memories of the song. Sometimes it works. For example, DAZED AND CONFUSED is a great example where it opens with “Slow Ride,” and you're like, “Oh, perfect.” And it just brings you right there. But other times, I think it's a cheat. I've felt that falling in love for the first time when you're 21, it's like a mix tape. I don't even like most movies with as much music as I put in THE HOTTEST STATE, but for that movie, I thought that's what that's like. There's always music playing, and because of that I wanted it all to be original. I thought it could operate as something like a Greek chorus, and if I had one authorship, we could sculpt these songs to fit the movie. And Jesse is such a romantic, all his songs are so romantic that he seemed to be the perfect guy to do it. And he's one of the few songwriters I know personally.
C: Quick, yes or no. Julie Delpy is moving forward on her new film THE COUNTESS and your name has been rumored to be attached to that. Is that true?
EH: You know what, they put me on there to try and help raise money for the movie. There really is no part for me. For me, I would love to be in that movie. I think Julie, obviously I believe in her tremendously and I thought her last movie was incredible, breathtaking, and I'm so happy for her. I think this one is going to be even better, the script is even better. Sadly, there is no real part for me.
C: That's too bad. [We'd already been given the sign from the publicist that our time was up and then this happened.]
EH: Hey, I wanted to say something to you. Your site, your review, is one of the few places that really batted for my movie, and I just really appreciated it. I had a couple black nights with that, and the fact that you guys took a little time out to notice the movie really…I really appreciated it.
C: I may have been the only person on the site to actually post a review of it, but I felt like so many critics were just being unbelievably mean about this little love story. I thought it was great.
EH: It's funny, for some reason, there's something about that story and the idea of being a celebrity and doing an autobiographical work…it doesn't bother people when anybody else does it but some people have always resisted it. And I've always felt like the movie didn't get a fair shake because of that, something that won't bother people in 20 years.
C: I don't remember the book getting that kind of reception, but somehow translating it to film, they call it self-indulgent. I didn't think that at all.
EH: If that's self-indulgent, then what's Proust? Then what's Jane Austen. If the whole idea of doing self-reflective art is bad then you've just erased half of our work. Then throw James Baldwin out the window, you know what I mean? I don't mind if people don't like it, but I felt it was just so unfairly attacked. And I appreciated your review and I wanted to say thank you. You can hate the next one, feel free, but I really did appreciate that.
C: Glad to hear that. Just keep making good stuff, and we won't have a problem.
EH: [laughs] Okay man. Bye.
Capone capone@aintitcoolmail.com
