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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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke
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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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
It's a really unique job that is a little schizophrenic and you have to kind of do it with a sense of humor.The trick is figuring out what each job is asking of you and what it's not asking of you.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke
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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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
Time is what creates trust.
Ethan Hawke -
Oh, I like going down the rabbit hole. You know, that's kind of my job. When you play Macbeth, you gotta dive down that one. The trick is figuring out how to do it with love and a sense of humor so you can pop back out again. But, kind of the actor's job is to go down the rabbit hole.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke
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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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
I've had different opportunities in my life, but I've tried to maintain the spirit of an amateur. Our culture roots everything in the barometer of success and how much money you make. But if you really just aspire to a life in the arts, it's really not a barometer at all.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke
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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.
Ethan Hawke -
I think that as soon as you think of yourself as a famous person or anything like that, you're objectifying yourself in some weird way.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke -
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.
Ethan Hawke