Ethan Hawke Quotes

Give your heart to everybody you meet. The rest is pretense.

Years ago I was going to play Chet Baker in another movie and I really felt drawn to that character and the script is good and I met with Robert and we seemed simpatico and we developed. But I had a real passion for that role and that brought me deep into that film 'cause I got the sense that Robert Budreau was going to really let me be creative inside this part.

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.

The writing process was some of the most exciting and rewarding moments of my life. It felt a lot like being in a band.

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.

The older I get, the more I realize how rare it is to meet a kindred spirit.

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 don't think Emma Watson needs any advice. She's an incredibly smart young woman who knows what she wants out of life and she has some great parents.

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.

You don't need other people to affirm that you're a valuable person.

I believe in the healing restorative power of art and communication. And so that's probably my rule. But that doesn't apply to bedtimes. And stuff like that.

I've turned down good directors before because I knew the part didn't speak to me and I've worked with less talented directors before because the part I had such passion for.

It's so hard for every young person, trying to figure out the adult you want to be.

I meet a lot of young people that want to go into acting because they think of what it will do for them. If that's the case, it can be a very, very painful profession. But if the kids want to do acting because they love it, and they want to give to it, then they can have a great life. It's really about as simple as how you look at it.

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.

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.

And the joy of my job - and it's really true - is that it's constantly evolving and changing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I like [that] there's a certain inherent drama to those jobs that is exciting to tell stories about and it's still real life. I'm a little less interested in the current fad of being obsessed with superheroes and things that are so out of the box.

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.

It was never in my dreams to make my personal life anybody else's business.

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.

You can't keep wanting to be 20 years old. Everybody knows that, but what's in the next room?

Time is what creates trust.

Success isn't measured by what you achieve, it's measured by the obstacles you overcome.

You need to be a good screen partner. It's very meaningful to me to be a part of great acting performances.

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.

I'm always trying to look for how I can find human stories that aren't just dramas.

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.

The drones are really interesting - how have the troops withdrawn from Afghanistan? Because we've upped the drone strikes and most of the country doesn't even really know what that means or who we're killing or... it's such a new weapon that we don't know what the long term impacts of that kind of military action is going to be.

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.

Whenever a really passionate, talented filmmaker seems to have an interest in me, I take it very seriously because I like to work.

I've very rarely worked with somebody that had such a clear idea of what Alejandro Amenábar wanted to do and what he wanted to achieve. The guy is incredibly prepared. He was clearly making a movie for himself and his own dream. I just tried to be a part of that dream. It's a rare opportunity.

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 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.

If I do three movies in a year, I don't feel like acting ever again.

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.

Most of us float with the river and there are a few people who move the river. Robert DeNiro is definitely one of them.

Alejandro Amenábar has a unique way of approaching movies and thinking about something which was new to me. It was different. I have a lot of respect for him so I just took a gamble.

When you make a movie with Alejandro Amenábar, he very quickly... it was very clear you're kind of operating in his dream universe.

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.

My process differs... my process for a Richard Linklater film is very different than a process for Training Day.

I love really exploring... you know, a cop drama for example is a great way to explore class in this country and explore, you know, really, identity in the country and who we are in a way that is extremely exciting, but it's also real, you know, it's also real people and real drama. The same with the military. I mean, a good science fiction story is also great.

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.

The more kind of head trippy sci-fi. I always like that. I was a big 'Twilight Zone' freak.