Ethan Hawke

"The older you get, the humbler you get. I know I dont have that much to offer, and I know Ive now read Moby Dick and Anna Karenina, and if I had read those books before I wrote The Hottest State, I dont think Id have published it. I had the arrogance of the uneducated, which sometimes you need."

"Its its own form of cinema, its its own entity. I think Chekhov would like Before Sunset because its all about nuance. Any decent screen-writing school would throw that script out. Theres no beginning, middle and end, its completely fluid, just chasing the nuance of life, and kind of believing whatever God is lives in this kind of energy that flows between all of us. I kind of live for that, for that chance that you might get another opportunity to be a part of something like that."

"People look at your life and see things as a big deal that arent a big deal to you. What I mean is, the chapter breaks are different for me. Ill read about my divorce, and what people think about it, and, well, its so inaccurate, usually, but the fact is, I wouldnt want it to be accurate. Because its 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."

"A lot of American actors when they do Shakespeare put on a phoney English accent and it drives me crazy. Youre always fighting against the idea that only the British know how to do Shakespeare."

"We live in a funny time. If you don’t go corporate, you can’t compete. You’re relegated as irrelevant. People used to admire that. There used to be something badassed and poetic about it."

"People love actors. They love reading about them and thinking about their lives. But they also secretly hate them. They think their lives are frivolous and all they do is go to parties, and they dont know real problems... Theres something at the root of our love-hate relationship with celebrity that I think has the makings, if you could do it in a really substantive way, of a great modern American novel."

"What I love about Celine, what I felt really proud about that script, is that shes really a fully dimensional woman. Its very rare in movies that you dont see a male projection of a fantasy woman. I mean, Julie deserves 90% of the credit, 100% of the credit, but I feel proud of the collaboration that created that character. Her work in that movie is my favorite thing about it."

"If I say this people will think Im kidding, but I learned so much about acting working with those wolves on White Fang. If I were to run Juilliard right now, I would make them take a class where they worked with animals. Animals dont know how to lie, so you have to just be with them. Whenever you act weird, or seem like you have an agenda, or are worried about what your hair looks like, they leave the set. Theyre not interested."

"I dont understand the world. I dont understand why some people have to suffer so much and others dont. I dont understand the unfairness of all that - I cant wrap my brain around it. Seems like it should be the opposite, like global warming should make Haiti discover that they have the secret plant that makes them all rich, because theyve suffered enough, those people."

"You have to express yourself. And to express yourself, you have to know yourself. Its actually super easy. Just have to follow your love."

"When I was younger I really admired people like Warren Beatty who could do one movie every four years. I thought I could do all that: run a theatre company, write a book, make the occasional movie. But life doesn’t work like that, or at least it only does for one or two people every generation. Usually, there’s a little give and take, you know. It took me a long time to realise that I didn’t understand things as well as I thought I did."

"Writing the book (The Hottest State) had to do with dropping out of college, and with being an actor. I didnt want my whole life to go by and not do anything but recite lines. I wanted to try making something else. It was definitely the scariest thing I ever did. And a huge learning experience about how not everybodys going to like you, or like what you do. And you have to ask yourself, is it worthwhile? Or am I just doing it to be liked? And it was just one of the best things I ever did. The second book (Ash Wednesday) was so much more fun because of that. The first was just a novelty act, like, The kid from Reality Bites wrote a book? Who does he think he is? And I understand that."