ETHAN HAWKE
The Oscar-nominated actor talks sleeping and sweets…
What’s the first thing you do when you get to set?
Bullshit with the first AD [assistant director]. If you get on good terms with the ADs, then your schedule gets good. They decide what time you get called. When the ADs don’t like you, you’re here hours early and hours late.
Hot or cold lunch?
I swear, my kids wished that we could just live on the set of The Magnificent Seven. I never ate better in my life than the months I made that movie.
Catering Achilles’ heel?
It’s just the sweets. I like them all. That’s the problem. Constant sweets all the time.
Do you ever sleep when you’re on set?
All the time, yeah. It’s one of the things I love about making movies. Like now, it’s raining, so you get a couple of hours to kill. So I can read a book. At home, there’s so many things I have to do.
How do you feel about phones on set?
Hate them. If it was up to me, no one would have a phone on set. It’s a profession that’s built on collective imagination. When everybody’s on their phone, their imagination is in prison. Phones just dissipate energy.
Longest day on set?
I did a day once with Antoine Fuqua where we shot, like, 19 hours. It felt like things we shot in the morning were two weeks ago. You know what? Any time I’ve worked really long hours, the scenes have never ended up in the final movie.
Ever stolen anything from set?
Yeah. There’s this vintage, very tiny, leather-bound book by George Bernard Shaw: On Going To Church. I found it hypnotising. I knew that if I didn’t steal it, I’d never see this thing again. [Hawke rummages in his bag and hands the small book to Teasers.] It’s from In A Valley Of Violence. They have all kinds of cool things on western sets. I keep it with me. I love it. It’s such a bizarre old thing.
Best wrap party you’ve been to?
They’re usually not very good. If the film was a great experience, the wrap party is full of sadness. And if the film was a bad experience, you don’t go to the wrap party! The last one I went to, I got drunk too quickly, so I decided to take a nap so that I could party with everybody later. I woke up in the morning in the back of somebody’s pickup truck. I just passed out. I’d worked too hard, clearly.
Boyhood must have had quite an intense wrap party?
Yeah, but I wasn’t there for it. They finished the movie out in this park, and it was the kid by himself and the crew. Ellar [Coltrane] and Rick [Linklater] talk about it as if it was really magical. But I wasn’t there, so that was a bummer.
Most embarrassing moment on set?
The one that jumps is my screentest for Explorers. I’d never worn a microphone before. They hooked a wire to my chest, and I went around shaking everybody’s hand, but I got the wire wrapped around my foot. When I went to walk onto set, I tripped and fell flat on my face. I think about that whenever I go to set. MM
‘I got drunk too quickly, then woke up In the morning In the back of somebody’s truck’