In First Reformed, 2018s slow burn of an awards-season contender, Ethan Hawke plays a minister undergoing a crisis of conscience. But even as the actor navigates his first serious run at an Oscar since 2014s Boyhood, the very business Hawke grew up in is undergoing its own crisis.
Hawke sat down with Little Gold Men podcast co-host Mike Hogan to reflect and elaborate on turmoil in the industry, which has hit close to home for the actor. In November 2018, First Reformeds director, Paul Schrader, wrote and then deleted a social-media post reflecting on Kevin Spaceys public disgrace following allegations of sexual assault. Schrader said that hed like to work with the actor—and, further: “I believe there are crimes in life but no crimes in art.” This all happened weeks before Spaceys bizarre Christmas Eve video went viral.
In the interview, Hawke says he understands what Schrader was getting at with that comment: “When did we become this moral police about situations we dont even understand? Most people—you know, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey—theyve been shamed. Then, everybody gets in the party line, even though they dont really know what happened.” But the actor is also supportive of Schrader deleting the post: “I disagree with Paul, and I think the reason he took it down was he was trying to make a political statement about the nature of art and the nature of shaming. I think its a valuable thing, but its not as nuanced as it should be.”
Hawke dives further into his nuanced opinion about the Spaceys and Weinsteins of the world during the interview, which you can read in full in the transcript below, or listen to on Little Gold Men. The actor, whose ex-wife, Uma Thurman, was one of many women who recounted being attacked by Weinstein, draws a much firmer line than Schrader:
Theres a whole generation thats on trial right now—a generation that I grew up in making movies. Theres a lot of terrible behavior. When the revolution of thought happens, theres a lot of glasses and plates [that] are going to get broke—but they need to get broke. I mean, theres no doubt in my mind—when I grew up in the movie business that I participated in, was involved in, witnessed, was raised by, was the whole river, the moving river was a boys club.
People say: “You see here about Harvey—everybody did it.” Not everybody did it. Everybody knew it happened. Most of us want to get the hell away from it.
Hawke himself is no stranger to challenging entrenched Hollywood systems. The actor made headlines last year when he appeared to criticize the rise of the superhero genre. But as he tells Mike, that was not quite his point: “I love comic books—I grew up on comic books. I have four kids; Ive seen all the comic-book movies. My problem is with the culture that now is hero-worshiping the money theyre making. If the whole culture defies and celebrates things that make a lot of money, you would be amazed if you do it for long enough who might get elected president.”
The real problem, Hawke says, is concepts like the best-popular-film Oscar, which would have detracted from awards seasons true goal: to boost the signal on under-seen, artistically challenging films. “There already is a popular Oscar. Its such a dumb thing to say. The popular Oscar is called the box office,” he said. “Theyre mad they dont get prizes. You know, well—guess what, dude? Your car is your prize. Those of us who dont have a car need a prize.”
Listen to this weeks episode of Little Gold Men above, and find a transcript of the full interview below. You can also find Little Gold Men on Apple Podcasts, where you can leave a rating and a review.
Vanity Fair: Well, Im thrilled to be here with Ethan Hawke for an early morning for us interview. Its like 9:30 in the morning, which is early for creative people. We're here to talk about many things including First Reformed, your film with Paul Schrader that came out this year in which you play a minister, a priest. What is this guy?
Ethan Hawke: Minister, yeah. Reverend Toller.
Reverend Toller who has a kind of crisis of conscience would you say, is that fair?
I would say that's exactly it. He has a crisis of faith, crisis of character, an existential explosion. I don't exactly know how to phrase it that doesn't make it sound cliché, but really as Paul Schrader wrote and directed this it's very clearly from the first time I read it the same voice as Taxi Driver. Taxi Driver is kind of a young man's existential crisis. In a lot of ways, First Reformed revisits the same crisis but from an older, more patient, wiser, spiritual place. It's the same crisis, it's the same cry.
Were you a big Taxi Driver fan? I mean, it's sort of like who isn't, but like-
Yeah, it's hard to love movies and not love Taxi Driver. You know, I mean it's like there's certain albums, Exile on Main St. or Abbey Road. There's certain things that you just have to love if you love rock and roll. If you love movies, I remember I saw Taxi Driver and Raging Bull in a double feature at Theatre 80 on St. Marks when I first moved New York, I was about 20 years old. I remember actually walking down the street afterwards so depressed because I realized everything I wanted to do with my life had already been done. I was like, wow, I got to start … it's just that style of acting and that precision of when writing intersects with the camera work, and acting, and costume, and music, and energy, and boom there's Raging Bull. You know? You don't even know how anybody did that. Even as opposed to somebody's spent my life making movies, I don't know how they made Raging Bull. It's so good you can't believe it. First Reformed, that's what … you know, when Paul Schrader sent me the script I was extremely interested.
It's a film about religion, which you don't see, I feel like you don't see that much of a kind of real study-
What do you mean that much? You never do. I mean, when you think about it, what Richard Linklater told me when he saw the movie he's like, nobodies even tried to make this movie for 60 years. It's not true what I just said that you never did, we could pick some. There's a handful of movies that seriously engage in faith, but for the most part in mainstream movies, priests in the religious community if kind of left for comedies or exorcism movies. You don't really … there are a lot of amazing religious people, women going down and fighting for equal rights all over the world. Some of the most beautiful people alive today have dedicated their life to faith and what that means, and some of them have a shockingly supple view of what faith means. There's some real heroes on the planet so I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that in general, for a country that loves to talk about God and politics, if you talk about God at the dinner table or engage somebody on the subway about your feelings about God, they run away.
Right, it's impolite.
It is, and we don't see it in movie.
Yeah.
I don't exactly know why, but it was part of what was such a beautiful challenge for me is to say like, no, let's really make a movie about a serious religious person, somebody whos not going to be a joke.
Well, and so a lot of it is about as we said at the beginning, a crisis of conscience. It's about an interior debate. It's about his interior life. How do you approach that as an actor because that's different than chewing up scenery, you know, you have to express a lot it seems like with a fairly minimal actual exterior effort. Am I making any sense?
Well, I don't know if you are or not, but I know what you mean. Which is that the spiritual life is something that is incredibly hard to dramatize, it always has been. You can make movies about a lot of things, but an inner life, what are the inner machinations of my soul that leads me to a certain belief system is something very … it's just not drama. It's made for literature. There's a lot of great books that deal with inner life, and spiritual calling, and spiritual conversion, and beautiful, famous books throughout the history of literature. For movies, it's very, very hard. Bergman has some great ones, you know, but as an actor it is a challenge because … it just has to live in the writing. Paul Schrader gives me this very beautiful … the DNA of the project is such where I immerse you in my journals and an inner thought. If you're paying attention, you start to realize that he's no longer making sense. He tells you things that start not being true and you start to be inside his psyche. When I first met Paul he asked me if knew what a recessive performance was and I did, he's talking about there's a great book called, Notes On A Cinematographer by Bresson that Richard Linklater … I mean, that was kind of the perfect actor for Schrader at this moment. Richard Linklater had given me that book in 1994 when we were talking about Before Sunrise. He also gave me Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film and kind of breaking down the rules of what … Hollywood filmmaking is designed to entertain you, it is designed to occupy your time from the time you get out of work until the time you're ready for bed, and you don't have to think. It's going to tell you when to cry, the music's going to tell you when to be scared, the energy, the photography's going to tell you when to be excited and you can kind of just turn off and take a ride. There's a different kind of cinema that is inviting you and your creativity to join the movie. That's A Diary of A Country Priest, Winter Light, a lot of movies in the '50s where you had really … there was an intersection between literature and film and film wasn't such complete big business and people feel like the job of a movie is to entertain you. Fanny and Alexander's job isn't to wow you. It's job is somewhere similar to what Anna Karenina's job is, it's inviting you, it is entertaining you but it's also asking you to join it. That's what Paul wanted to do. A recessive performance doesn't try to juggle and tell you jokes, and cry, and take out your sword and do swashbuckling tricks. It's inviting you to participate in a dialog with me. It's kind of more like a … the challenge is more like a guided meditation challenge. Am I making sense?
Yeah, I mean I think so. I want to hear more about what you mean by that.
Well, it means a performance, it's got to be full of secrets. If you have dinner with somebody and they're full of secrets and in emotional crisis, that dinner will be hypnotizing. If you go out to dinner with somebody and they just tell you jokes, and they have great stories, and blah, blah, blah. You have a nice time, whatever. Somebody who is in true emotional crisis, they might change your life. They might radicalize your life. They're drawing you in. They're drawing you into their psychic space.
How do approach that mechanically, or do you?
It's called a life's work, to be totally honest with you. People think acting is about memorizing lines and things like that, or they think it's about a celebration of personality like, whoa, isn't that person amazing. Really, at it's finest it's void of that. It's the complete loss of personality in service of a larger story. You start to realize that every aspect of yourself that identifies personality is largely artificial, superficial. Whether you're from Boston, or whether you're from Manchester, England these things are largely superficial. Whether you smoke Marlboro cigarettes, or whether you do yoga these are decisions you can make they're not the essence of you and they're malleable. Once you start realizing that the essence of you is quite fantastically malleable, it's almost some kind of spiritual question because what is the essence of you that is not malleable? That's the next question. Then you get into acting and how you can wear these different clothes and how you could have a different past and still be you. If you had different heartbreaks, how would that inform the way you speak. You start realizing that acting isn't about memorizing lines, it's about the movement of energy. A great performance, take Jimi Hendrix. He's moving energy, he's used the guitar … Miles Davis, I saw Mark Rylance do Jerusalem and it's not … he didn't memorize lines, he's moving energy around a theater. That is not something you prepare for on a job to job basis. My daughter is studying acting, she just left Juilliard and she's 20 years old and she's really into it. She keeps asking me questions about this job versus this job, and this job. The real jump is when you start not going job to job, meaning that there's a connection between all the jobs and that your life as a performer has a continuity to it. It's not schizophrenic, it's part of the holistic thing of it is that you're off, you're always shape changing. It's a shamanistic life's calling. It's too early in the morning and I know I'm talking about this and it probably doesn't … I've been acting since I was 13.
I could see your character from the Before Sunrise movies as what happened to the kid from Dead Poets Society and I could also see this character as what happened to the kid from Dead Poets Society. I had that thought like there's two very different roots that this kid could take if he went down a religious road, maybe he would land here. I don't know.
Yeah, here's how I try to explain it. For me, I don't know what other people think but when Denzel Washington is really in the pocket of a performance it seems like he's just being himself, he's just unlocked his true self. That's you're seeing the real inner workings of his soul. Now, the funny thing is those characters, his character in Training Day is not like his character in Glory and his character is not like Malcolm X. All those men are different but they're all Denzel. There's a certain authenticity to them. Yes, there's some overlap but what you're talking about is he's finding a truth for himself. You know, Sally Hawkins is another great … I did a movie … Sally Hawkins is an amazing actor because it's the power of imagination. I remember her imagination is such that if you start to do scene work with her you get transported back in time. It's just the power of imagination. I'll give you another, I love this. I had an acting teacher once, he's a director who was talking about relaxation and he would say, "Imagine, really imagine peeling an orange." "You're really hungry, really it's a wonderful morning and the sun's coming up, and you're peeling this orange." "You can taste it, and you can smell it, and you can feel it your fingers." "You're peeling it, it's just delicious." Then he says, "Now, ball up your fist, ball up your toes, seize up your back, clench your jaw, clinch your eyes and now try to imagine eating this orange." You just can't do it. A great performance is a kind of hypnotizing event of relaxation when it's at its best. It's a guided meditation, that's where I'm going with this where you relax, and focus on imagination, concentration, relaxation. You are entering, hopefully, some subconscious state where you're, I, the actor am also being played. We are being played together. I am the focal point, but that's really it, in a meaningful performance it's a shared experience because it's not just about me dictating something. I don't have an agenda with the audience. People say, what do you want people to take away from this movie? I've already lost by the question. What I really want is for you to have an experience that is your own.
Is that division between cinema that draws you in and entertainment that comes at you, basically, is that at the heart of the sort of … you had this little controversy talking about superhero movies about Logan and all that stuff. Is that the under the context of what you were trying to get at that we've got a lot of entertainment, there's a lot of investment in entertainment but there could be more investment in this kind of cinema?
Maybe. My criticism is with an obsession with prioritizing the accumulation of wealth. We live in a country that celebrates the accumulation of wealth. If a movie made a lot of money, it's a good movie. Right? If a crack dealer makes a lot of money, he's a good crack dealer. If you really prioritize, and the whole culture defies and celebrates things that make a lot of money, you would be amazed if you do it for long enough who might get elected president. You see what Im saying?
Yes, I do.
We as the artistic community have a responsibility to try to push those boundaries. If you just serve people, if you have to serve everybody, you've got to serve McDonald's. Everybody likes it okay. Right, you know. If you are a chef, you have a responsibility to try to give people better food. Food that might actually enrich their lives, food that might expose them to new ideas, new flavors, that might actually be healthy for them. Right, you know?
Yeah.
That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about I love comic books—I grew up on comic books. I have four kids; I've seen all the comic-book movies. My problem is not with the movies, my problem is with the culture that now is hero-worshiping the money theyre making. That's really what I'm talking about because right now look, if One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest came out today it would not be a studio release. Where it is we are not celebrating and challenging young people to watch difficult incendiary, participate in whether it's literature, art, music we are over deifying things that make money. That's my point of view, that's what I was talking about.
You obviously spent a lot of time working on this film with Paul Schrader. I wanted to ask you, he got in a little bit of, there was a little bit of a scandal where he wrote on Facebook something about Kevin Spacey basically saying Kevin Spacey's a great actor, I really don't give a damn what he does in his personal life, I'd like to make a movie with him. I'm guessing for some of the reasons you're talking about, Kevin Spacey spent his entire life getting to a place where he can deliver the kind of performance that other people who may be less horrible can do.
Maybe, I don't know.
What did you think of that? What did you make of that?
Well, I think that Paul's point is that if somebody's in jail, let's take a criminal. That guy, he murdered three people right, and he writes a book of poetry. It can't be published? His voice is not interesting to us, forgiveness doesn't exist or does art only have value if the person is Dudley Do Right? That's his point, he's getting at a larger principle of when did we become this moral police about situations we don't even understand. Most people—you know, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey—theyve been shamed. Then, everybody gets in the party line, even though they don't really know what happened. Right? Now me personally, I hold the responsibility of celebrity, I challenge myself to hold that when you're teaching young people and when you're in a position where young people look up to you, sexual misconduct is a real problem. It really demolishes people's self esteem and it undermines your own credibility and it undermines the profession's credibility. Personally, I think there are a lot of fantastic actors and I don't really want to work with one that undermines young people's sexuality and their sense of self. I disagree with Paul, and I think theres a reason he took it down is because he was trying to make a political statement about the nature of art and the nature of shaming. I think its a valuable thing, but its not as nuanced as it should be. Does that make sense?
It does, yeah. It does make sense. I mean, one last thing on this topic. You know, Harvey Weinstein this Friday is going in possibly to have his case dismissed. Maureen Dowd wrote about your former wife Uma Thurman's experiences with him and dealing with Pulp Fiction and all the rest of it. What do you think we can learn about from this whole ordeal? Do you feel like you've learned from this ordeal? Has it changed the way you view your work or the community of Hollywood?
You know, I think Harvey represents something. Sometimes when there's a revolution there's a center point. Right? There's a whole generation that's on trial right now—a generation that I grew up in making movies. Theres a lot of terrible behavior. When the revolution of thought happens, theres a lot of glasses and plates [that] are going to get broke—but they need to get broke. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind growing up when I grew up in the movie business that I participated in, was involved in, witnessed, was raised by, was the whole river, the moving river was a boys club. There's just no doubt about it. For that to change, people got to shout and scream. You know, plates got to get broken like I said. I don't know if every plate that gets broken was the right plate but I see a radicalization of thought and a revolution of thought that is serving the common good. I think one of my heroes, Jack O'Brien who's a theater director … I'll finish the Jack O'Brien story. I was interviewing him for a bunch of young directors, young theater students, this is 10 years ago. The first question, some kid raises his hand and says, "Hey, Mr. O'Brien, what do you think is the most important thing about being a director?" He said, "Lack of sexual misconduct." This is 10 years ago. He said, "If you're going to create a safe place for creativity and people are going to understand why she gets chosen to be in the light and not her, and why this one gets the big part, and why this one doesn't, and why this person gets to sing the final song there needs to be some actual leadership." "Actual leadership means that you are prioritizing content of character, work ethic, things that we can root our self esteem in and not that you're cuter, or you kissed me backstage." "Once you start that kind of behavior the whole machine breaks down and there's a lack of leadership." There's a lot of mudslinging happening and that probably needs to happen. I'll say that I grew up with so many heroes, people like Jack O'Brien, people like Richard Linklater. I worked with a lot of great leaders, men, who did a great job. People say, “You see here about Harvey—everybody did it.” Not everybody did it. Everybody knew it happened. Most of us want to get the hell away from it. It smelled bad. The question is, there's a great movement to try to have accountability and I think it's fantastic.
Yeah. Well, this is an Oscar Awards podcast and one of the strange, interesting topics recently was the popular Oscar and I feel like it's kind of related to the conversation we've been having. Do you think it would be helpful for the Oscars to have a way to reward popular movies?
There already is a popular Oscar. Its such a dumb thing to say. The popular Oscar is called the box office.
Right.
You know what I mean? Mission Impossible already won the popular Oscar. The Oscars, awards shows, critics prizes, theyre all designed to help people have some barometer besides money for success. That's the design of it. Say you're my dad, right, and you're an actuary, and you work in Dallas, and you work a huge week, 50, 60 hours. You've got some kids, you've got to go to church, you've got responsibilities, you're coaching the baseball team. You've got time to see maybe one movie a month. Right? Well, what's that movie going to be? Well, I need somebody to tell me what's good. What's worth my time? You look to the Texas Critic's Prize, or you look to the Oscars, or you look to this. You don't need, I mean this is what I'm … the idea that we need a popular Oscar, is it going to make sure the people who are making money they get a prize too. Theyre mad they dont get prizes. You know, well—guess what, dude? Your car is your prize. Those of us who dont have a car need a prize. An actual prize. You know what I mean?
I get it, yes, I hear you. The reason we're here early is that you're doing a play right now, True West. A Sam Shepard play with Paul Dano. How's that going?
Well, you know Sam Shepard is one of the great poets of his generation. It was one of the privileges of my life to get to work with him a few times. I got to work with Sam and Gary Sinise at Steppenwolf. They're one of the great interpreters of Shepard's work. I also got to work Joe Chaikin on a new Shepard play. Joe Chaikin was a part of the whole '60s movement here in the '70s in New York City, kind of the punk rock Patty Smith side of Sam Shepard early work. I've had a lot of influences and now I'm getting to work with one of Sam's favorite director's, this British director, James Macdonald who directed Sam acting in a Caryl Churchill, which I saw, which was absolutely-
Oh really?
Yeah, absolutely brilliant.
Oh cool.
Sam really loved James' style and the way that he thinks. I know why. Now I'm getting to work with Paul Dano who of course has never read a Sam Shepard play before now. It's a totally different generation. I'm not saying he hasn't read one, but he hadn't read True West. I've been immersed in this since I was 14 years old and saw True West when Steppenwolf did it. We're coming at it from two completely different angles. He's coming at it completely open, completely fresh within his crazy brain and his huge talent. You know? I'm coming at it well, this is what Gary would say. This is what Joe Chaikin would say. This is what Ed Harris would say. You know what I mean? I'm having the time of my life working on it. I feel really lucky because there have been a lot of great Lee's, you know the brothers are Lee and Austin. John Malkovich exploded onto the international scene playing Lee in True West. Philip Hoffman and John C. Reilly did the play rotating parts but each of them excelled as Lee. That was what they really, from my point of view, they excelled as Lee. One of the things, the play was written that it should be a decade between the brothers. It's a guy in his 30s and a guy in his 40s and that one is a younger manifestation of self and one is an older manifestation of self. Sam was right at 40 when he wrote it. I feel that Paul is giving an amazing performance in rehearsal. It's really exciting. I haven't seen … as a guy who studied the play forever, I'm learning a lot about Austin, I'm learning a lot about the play through Paul because he's right for this part and it's exciting.
That's awesome.
Isn't it great? I love this thing. You know, Ben Stiller's one of the great American directors, I think. He's really underrated and it's so brilliant his piece.
It's really, once you're hooked it's like you're really in it.
Patricia Arquette's performance.
Oh my God, incredible. Yes. Yeah, she was really good.
My Boyhood costar.
I know, exactly. Yeah. Well, how different is it doing stage versus film? How much can translate and how much can't?
I think it's easiest to understand. It's a little bit like doing an album in a studio and doing a concert at Madison Square Garden. I mean, it's the same muscles but it's just a much heightened, more disciplined exercise. This is like when you are acting in a movie it's kind of like rehearsing for a play and somebody shot it, they filmed you rehearsing for a play. Then they go off and cut it, and pick the best takes, and pick the best thing that you did, and they add the music and they figure out actually, I don't like that scene. When you're doing a play, you have to do all that extra work. You rehearse it and then you go, what was the best thing we did in rehearsal? Well, it was kind of like that. What was the essential part of Act two, Scene three that made that pop? Yeah, you know what? We've got to get music off that. I've got to pick up the pace in Act one or I lose them in Act two. It's just a much more disciplined art form vocally, intellectually. On a movie I've got to know one scene at a time. Right now, while I'm talking to you I am also simultaneously checking in with myself and seeing if I know Act two, Scene three the last monologue and I know that I don't know it and then I have an anxiety attack and I want to get off the podcast. It's just much more challenging but it's the same work.
Yeah. Well, on that note we'll let you go get back to note but thank you so much for coming by and talking to us. Congratulations on this performance that has racked up pretty much every critics award you can think of. We look forward to seeing it continue to rock.
It's never going to get the popular Oscar.
Maybe rightly so, you'll be proud of that.
Maybe rightly so, yeah.
All right. Thank you, Ethan.
Thank you, man.
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