Ethan Hawke.

I Think Most People Are Good at More Things Than the World Gives Them the Opportunity to Do.

But the Truth Is, I’ve Never Wanted to Be a Movie Star – and I’ve Been Pretty Clear About That.

People Look at Your Life and See Things as a Big Deal That Aren’t a Big Deal to You. What I Mean Is, the Chapter Breaks Are Different for Me. I’ll Read About My Divorce, and What People Think About It, And, Well, It’s so Inaccurate, Usually, but the Fact Is, I Wouldn’t Want It to Be Accurate. Because It’s My Truth. When I Was Younger, It Was More Important to Me to Come off Well. Now, I Just Want to Try to Be Good at What I Do.

The Devil Is Seductive, and so Guns Are Glorious in the Culture. I Understand There’s a Case to Be Made. for Instance, Spike Lee Said Something Like This, That You Can’t Have a Scene with Drugs in a Film That Doesn’t Secretly Make You Want to Do Drugs. in the Same Vein, It’s Hard to Make a Movie That’s Anti-violence Because the Very Nature of Photographing Violence Eroticises It. but I’m Not so Sold That That’s True.

Actors Write Movies All the Time – but You Try Fiction and You’re an Asshole. Everyone Wants to Try New Things, or Almost Everyone. Really Great Supporting Actors Want to Play the Lead, and Lead Actors Secretly Wish They Could Be Character Actors. Brad Pitt Doesn’t Want to Be Pretty! You Know What I Mean? Everybody in the World Wants to Look Like Brad Pitt, and Brad Pitt Wants to Look Like a Regular Guy.

A Lot of American Actors When They Do Shakespeare Put on a Phoney English Accent and It Drives Me Crazy. You’re Always Fighting Against the Idea That Only the British Know How to Do Shakespeare.

Acting Was Something That Came Very Easily to Me. It Fell in My Lap. but the People I Admired the Most Were Not Really Movie Stars. I Was Full of Jack London and Jack Kerouac.

I Was Friends with River Phoenix, You Know, and I Used to Be Painfully Jealous of Him, Until a Friend Pointed Out That Him Doing Well Doesn’t Mean That You’re Doing Badly. and If He Does Badly, It Doesn’t Mean You’re Doing Better. It’s Like That Great Gore Vidal Line, ‘Whenever a Friend of Mine Succeeds, a Small Part of Me Dies. Being an Adult Is Really Challenging. When You’re Young, You Can Rely for so Long on Being Promising, and Then You Have to Stop Being Promising. You Want to Say, Hey, Can’t I Be Promising Anymore?.

The Person Who’s Had the Most Impact on Acting Since Marlon Brando, the Only Person Who’s Really Changed Acting, Is Julia Roberts. I Call It the Julia Roberts School of Acting. It’s an Excess of Competence. She’s Got All These Imitators, and They Just Basically Get on Screen and Smile. the Idea Is, Smile and Say Your Line. and Julia Roberts Herself – Well, That’s One Thing. but She Has a Ton of Pupils Who Get on Screen and Basically Just Smile. and Their Smile Is so Winning, and so Wonderful, That You Say, I Like That Person. and It Drives Me Crazy, Because the Point of Performance Is Not to Be Liked. My Grandfather’s a Politician, and He Can Never Understand. He Says, You’ve Got to Stop Playing These People No One Would Ever Like! but My Job Is Not to Be Liked. It’s to Make Interesting Things. I Want to Actually Do Something, Rather Than Just Be Me on Screen. Julia Roberts Does Something with It, but All Her Imitators. It’s Like the Imitators of Raymond Carver, That Generation of Writers Copying Him, I Guess: It Looks Simple to Them and They Copy It, but They’re Missing the Thing That Made It Special.

In Grade School, They Say You Have to Pick a Profession and Stick to It…and People Stop Looking at Their Lives as a Work in Progress. If You Don’t Stay in Touch with Yourself, You Kind of Lose Focus. If You’re Going to Spend a Life in the Arts, You Need to Be Infused with a Sense of Gratitude and a Sense of Wonder. It’s a Privilege to Do This Profession. but There Is a Payment You Have to Make for That Privilege, Which Is to Do Your Best All the Time. to Challenge Yourself.