Oscar-nominated actor, Ethan Hawke, who's tremendous, joins us this morning to give us the lowdown on The Lowdown and his love for the Bay Area

AreaWell, I have a sister who lives in the Bay Area, and, um, I have family there.

And it's, you know, I grew up, uh, reading Jack Kerouac and seeing City Lights Bookstore as, you know, a, a, a North Star of, of sorts.

And, um, I remember I drove cross-country when I was about 21 just to visit it, and now I get to play a show where I get to be a local bookstore owner, my own version of Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

And so I don't know, I, I, I hope that, uh, it's fun to talk to the good people of San Francisco this morning.

All your love and all your-

We just felt really good in this dance, and we had fun together, and we felt joyous together, and that's honestly all I ever ask for.

And you've said this is one of your favorite roles you've ever played.

Well, it's a great environment.

I don't think Tommy will back me up that Sterling runs a good show.

It's incredibly creative and he knows what he's doing.

I do have to ask, Ethan, speaking of those previous experiences, any chance Jesse and Selene are going to take another

turn.

You know, I can't speak to that today.

There's too much pressing news.

Ooh.

She's, she's an unbelievable cook.

She's an amazing actor and a great human being, but she cooks for all of us.

They've both said this is so original, but it also just does play into this time, doesn't it?

Yeah.

I mean, the noir, any good noir, whether you're talking about Chinatown or any of the ones that you pick as your favorite, there's a couple things that are important.

One is place, and Tulsa is an extremely interesting city.

And our director, Sterlin Harjo, is, uh, he's from there, he grew up there.

Ethan read it first.

Uh, yeah, I had been looking at, been thinking about doing an evening of one-acts, and so was, uh, getting sent a bunch of young writers and what people were working on.

I wanted to do some new plays by some young writers and, and found this one piece that was amazing.

I ended up not really wanting to do an evening, but Rick and I had been talking about the idea of experimenting with DV really.

You know, there's all this kind of talk about digital video movies and, and how the form is gonna be moving forward, and we kind of thought about experimenting with that.

And I sent him this to see if this would be something in that context that would, that maybe we could play with, and then it, then Rick took it from there.

Exactly.

Somehow there's a dynamicness that, uh, what is dynamic in theater is not necessarily dynamic on screen, and it's figuring out how to c- to use the tools of cinema.

There are actors who I think fear if they slow down, things will just stop.

That's not driving me.

I, I know that feeling.

There's a, um-- One of my favorite, I'm gonna butcher it, but I read this obituary of Paul Scofield, who's a great English actor.

Man For All Seasons was the thing that I saw him in when I was young.

But he was a really amazing actor, and I actually met him a couple times at benefit performances and things like that.

He died and, and they asked him at the end of his life why he was-- he'd been performing at his local church, and he'd stopped performing in the West End or Broadway or something.

I, I don't, I don't wanna be like this is literal, but...

There are actors who I think fear if they slow down, things will just stop.

That's not driving me.

I, I know that feeling.

There's a, um-- One of my favorite, I'm gonna butcher it, but I read this obituary of Paul Scofield, who's a great English actor.

Man for All Seasons was the thing that I saw him in when I was young, but he was a really amazing actor and I actually met him a couple times at benefit performances and things like that.

He died and, and they asked him at the end of his life why he was-- he'd been performing at his local church and he'd stopped performing in the West End or Broadway or something.

Somebody had interviewed him saying, "Well, if you can still perform, why aren't you performing for bigger audiences?" And he said, "Well, I really like walking to work, and I've always only performed for my maker anyway, so I really don't care who's in the audience." I feel that way, that there's-- all the work is in service of, uh, some dialogue that I'm having With whatever that other force is that's, like, giving birth to the universe and the, the, the all slowing down and stopping thing where you say it like that, that kind of thrills me.

I, I don't, I don't wanna be like, "This is literal," but-

There are actors who I think fear if they slow down, things will just stop.

That's not driving me.

I, I know that feeling.

There's a, um-- One of my favorite-- I'm gonna butcher it, but I read this obituary of Paul Scofield, who's a great English actor.

Man For All Seasons was the thing that I saw him in when I was young.

But he was a really amazing actor, and I actually met him a couple times at benefit performances and things like that.

He died and, and they asked him at the end of his life why he was-- he'd been performing at his local church, and he'd stopped performing in the West End or Broadway or something.

I, I don't, [laughs] I don't wanna be like, "This is literal," but-

There are actors who I think fear if they slow down, things will just stop.

That's not driving me.

I, I know that feeling.

There's a, um-- One of my favorite, I'm gonna butcher it, but I read this obituary of Paul Scofield, who's a great English actor.

Man for All Seasons was the thing that I saw him in when I was young.

But he was really amazing actor, and I actually met him a couple times at benefit performances and things like that.

He died, and, and they asked him at the end of his life why he was-- he'd been performing at his local church, and he'd stopped performing in the West End or Broadway or something.

I, I don't, I don't wanna be like, "This is literal," but...

There are actors who I think fear if they slow down, things will just stop.

That's not driving me.

I, I know that feeling.

There's a, um, one of my favorite-- I'm gonna butcher it, but I read this obituary of Paul Scofield, who's a great English actor.

Man For All Seasons was the thing that I saw him in when I was young.

But he was a really amazing actor, and I actually met him a couple times at benefit performances and things like that.

He died and, and they asked him at the end of his life why he was-- he'd been performing at his local church and he'd stopped performing in the West End or Broadway or something.

I, I don't, I don't wanna be like, "This is literal," but...

Ethan, whenever you go to a second season and cast members are added, is there any kind of apprehension as far as, "Okay, is this gonna work? Is this not gonna work? How are they gonna end up integrating themselves with the current members?" Is there any of that? Like, is it, you know, I think you know what I'm getting at here.

You know, there could be, but you also know you have to do it.

Like, it, it's kind of, oh, if you were reading a collection of novels with the same main character, each novel, each story needs new energy and needs a new plot, needs a new, um, activity, and those other actors are gonna provide it.

You know, it helps me find new aspects of Lee to be, you know, to get to play these scenes with my father, to get to play scenes falling in love.

It, it, it just breathes life into the whole show, so we knew we needed them.

Are you scared when you're having a good ti- It's like, you know, it's like bringing two new people on a family vacation.

Like, is this gonna go all right? Um, but if your heart's in the right place, it usually does.

What's been the key for you?

Talk a little bit about working with Tommy Lee Jones.

You know, it's corny, but sometimes i- it's a pinch yourself moment.

You know, like I, I just have, I've loved his acting.

I've learned a lot watching him work over the years, and I like the way he carries himself and the way he moves through space.

And, um, uh, he's extremely intelligent, and he's really, really good at understanding what quality writing is.

And when a guy like that comes on set, you have this instant realization of like, "Oh, this human being is famous for a reason.

They are great at their job." And it's hard to be great at a job.

Growing up, were you a comic book fan, and did you have a preference, Marvel or DC much?

Oh

wow, hello, welcome.

Dave Eggers, don't worry about it.

People cry through most of my talks, so it's fine.

I've long been a fan of his, and out of the blue, I got asked to do the audio recording of this book.

And I've done a handful of audio books, but usually it's so much time that I only do it if I know, like I did Slaughterhouse-Five, I did Dharma Bums, I've done... call the wild if if i know it's a great book i kind of sign up for it because it's a way it's a little bit like going to school for a few days because you if you read all of call the wild out loud you really start to see how the author is working you see the word choices the repetition of word choices the way they build a sentence the way it's it's If the novel is great, you really can learn a lot.

But I don't normally like to do new books because it's so time consuming.

Is that something you relate to? So

All

right.

So it's the day Reality Bites is supposed to premiere at Sundance.

We're like 23, 24 years old.

We might have been hungover.

You can imagine the situation.

We had a couple hours to kill before the premiere.

I do want to clarify.

Mm-hmm.

Their story is that of practicing constantly, trying really hard, having some minor little ups, and basically, you know, being ignored.

That's most people's experience in the arts.

And I just thought Blaze Foley, somehow I was like, wow, he's the perfect, you know, vehicle to tell a, a more true biopic.

One, because like you said, I find them often extremely lazy, because they have a great central performance, because there's this very interesting human being at the center of which we already know a lot about.

So, a lot of the work of the actor's already been done.

They, all they have to do is imitate this other person.

Yep.

Yeah.

I'm an actor, and so I travel around all over the country.

Been shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I shoot in New Orleans, I shoot in California, I shoot all over the country.

And everywhere you go, you meet all these amazing people.

But Ethan, is there a method benefit to that? I- is some part of doing that, channeling so much into how you perform it, when you've really felt all those things?

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the environment, when you learn...

Part of what, when you're making a movie, why a good costume is so important, why good sets are so important, is when those things are real and full of life and story, then the acting is really easy.

Yeah.

You know, it's really simple.

Your oldest daughter is getting married.

You're in a situation that humanity has been doing forever.

And yet...

And yet your heart is ripping open.

And the really mysterious part about it is I thought that it would be moving because...

I thought, are they good friends? Do they know each other? Did you guys have a relationship or was this just love for the craft?

Aw.

You know? I know it's super corny, but what, what I mean is that, um, the, the observations, um, it's, it's such a powerful thing what you did, what you went through, what you gave everybody.

Um, you're so beautiful In the movie, it was so incredible to watch you grow up and watch you, um, Rick is so lucky, um, that the universe presented you two together.

Your intensity and your intelligence and your authenticity that you had as a little boy into a young man, it's incredible to watch it mature, watch it grow.

It was really fun in the moment to watch you have agency as it, as it begun, but it's actually, the essence of you is, is the film.

[audience clapping]

Yeah.

I remember, I remember the big casting choice.

To me, funny enough, it's a show about those storytellers, the people who put the words to page, and so the literary inspirations are very key you know you mentioned in the show jim thompson a lot elmore leonard vibes i get plenty from it i'm curious for you in terms of shaping the performance of lee you're very well read were there any literary inspirations that molded you or helped you create the character and what we see on screen

Well, there's so many.

That's the fun thing about the show, that it wears its influences on its sleeve.

I mean, you mentioned Jim Thompson's the most obvious because the show's kind of centered around him, but Jim Thompson was even more pulpy than our show.

Yeah.

I do Pop 11280 or whatever.

It's one of my all-time favorites.

Do you see yourself coming back to more? I know with wildcat recently and you working on documentaries, do you, do you find yourself also wanting to continue a lot more? Is there anything interesting you right now as a moment, as a filmmaker where you want to pursue that? Are you,

Yeah.

Except this is the first time Rodgers has written with anyone else, a young man by the name of Oscar Hammerstein.

They're about to change musical theater history.

Larry Hart is about to be sent off to Antarctica to death.

It's literally as if you're with Lennon and McCartney the day the Beatles are gonna break up.

One of 'em's gonna be in a band five times bigger than the Beatles, and the other one is gonna be dead.

That's, we're talking.

I have, very much so.

Oh, yeah.

You, you know? It, it was, it was a real challenge to try to fit all the feelings we wanted to fit, all the emotions that we wanted to be alive and in the present moment, without exposition.

You know, it- a normal biopic would show you when they first met, and show you their first hit song, and show you when they won their award, and show you when they're on the cover of Time Magazine, and then show you the 15 times he showed up drunk.

But we're just getting to see them on this last conversation.

And it...

One of the things that was important to Andrew, we know a lot about...

I mean, the two of us have been involved in the theater and artistic life our whole lives, and artistic breakups are different than romantic breakups.

... w- uh, what does the sort of, it's an impossible romance, really, but what does it reveal about his character, him wanting to be with Elizabeth, whatever be is? [laughs]

Does that happen to you often or is this a rare thing for you to have that moment of doubt?

You know, by nature, I'm an enthusiast.

And so, um, if I had too many moments of doubt, I wouldn't have done half the stupid shit I got up to with my life.

Um, and, um, You know, it's a problem of a only child of a single mother is you just think everybody loves you as much as your mom does and you just try anything you want, you know? And then the world, you know, quickly slaps you upside the head over and over again and reminds you that it's not that way.

But no, this was scary.

This is scarier than most.

And to be honest, Rick was edgy in a way that he isn't normally.

You can say you don't have optimism, too, which is a reasonable answer.

And you felt that? You felt that cold.

Oh, you know, I felt certain I was washed up, I mean, certain I was washed up, at least, you know, three different periods I could point to where...

Now, funnily enough, with the benefit of hindsight, those start to be the best times of my life, i- in hindsight.

Because when everybody's patting you on your back-

Mm-hmm.

I have four kids and a wife who loves me, and I get to do work I believe in.

And the older I get, the more the work that I'm putting out into the world is work that, um, is connected to me, that I, that I care about.

I care about this movie that I'm talking to you about today.

So how did playing somebody short and having to look up at people, what did you learn about my life at my height? [chuckles]

The world is so stupid in the way that it, um, imagines power and intelligence and grace and, you know, tall and handsome.

Tall equating power, tall equating authority.

It doesn't.

Beauty is as beauty does.

We all know this.

Um, it was...

Um, do you feel like you understand why those two things so often go together?

Yeah,

exactly.

He shot me in the heart.

I'm bleeding right now.

Can't even talk about that song without crying.

We're talking about Blaze Foley, obviously.

I made a movie about Blaze Foley, so that's too easy.

You work with Chris Iverson.

The opening

night party for Oklahoma took place at Sardi's.

It's true.

Larry Hart really did go to this party.

And the writer, Robert Capo, the screenplay is absolutely genius.

It really is.

And he just imagines, what would that be like? And I think for all of us, the fear of irrelevance, the fear that the best days are gone.

You see a