Ethan Hawke: Patron Saint of Lost Artists and Lay Existentialists
Feeling confused about your creative journey? Well, he’s the North Star you’ve been looking for
For years now, I’ve been telling people to study Ethan Hawke’s career if they want a MasterClass in how to pursue a life in the arts. This is a person who has taken more risks in his career than almost any other artist I can think of and he’s consistently done so without any apparent regard for how others think of him or his work. Actor, screenwriter, director, author, musician. He has passion, he fully commits to it, and because of that, he has evolved into a bold creative voice entirely on his own terms.
More, to listen to Hawke wax philosophical on the fly about art is no less existentially exciting and enthralling than listening to his beloved character Jesse in BEFORE SUNRISE (1995) and its two sequels. This is why I want to remind you about the TEDTalk Hawke gave in 2020 — “Give Yourself Permission to Be Creative” — in case you missed it, meant to get to it but never did, or watched it and need a refresher. Every twenty to thirty seconds, he drops a truth bomb that will inspired you (once you’ve wrapped your head around it).
I strongly advise you rewatch from time to time. I’ve sat through it five times now and still marvel both at the folksy wisdom of Hawke’s words and how much I want to spend a long night drinking/philosophizing with him.
Here are a few highlights worth committing to memory. Below you can also find the TEDTalk itself, an excellent NEW YORK TIMES profile of Hawke that I can’t recommend enough, and a bonus video of him on OFF CAMERA WITH SAM JONES discussing what happened the first time he attempted something new in his artistic journey. When you’re done here, head over to YouTube and keep digging because Ethan Hawke is a gift that keeps on giving.
“That’s when art’s not a luxury. It’s actually sustenance. We need it.”
“You have to ask yourself, do you think human creativity matters? Well, hmm, most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, right? They have a life to live and they’re not really that concerned with Allen Ginsberg’s poems or anybody’s poems until their father dies. They go to a funeral, you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart. They don’t love you anymore. And all of a sudden. you’re desperate for making sense out of this life. And has anybody ever felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud?
“Or the inverse — something great. You meet somebody and your heart explodes. You love them so much you can’t even see straight. You know, you’re dizzy. Did anybody feel like this? What is happening to me?
“And that’s when art’s not a luxury. It’s actually sustenance. We need it.”
On what art really is
“Okay, well, what is [art]? Human creativity is nature manifest in us.”
“[Art is] vital. It’s the way we heal each other.”
“There is this thing that worries me sometimes whenever you talk about creativity, because it can have this kind of feel that it’s just nice, you know, it’s warm or it’s something pleasant.
“It’s not. It’s vital. It’s the way we heal each other.”
“We start to witness each other’s common humanity.”
“In singing our song and telling our story, and inviting you to say, hey, listen to me and I’ll listen to you, we’re starting a dialogue, you know. And when you do that, this healing happens, and we come out of our corners, and we start to witness each other’s common humanity. We start to assert it. And when we do that, really good things happen.
“So, if you want to help your community, if you want to help your family, if you want to help your friends, you have to express yourself and to express yourself, you have to know yourself.”
On expressing yourself through the arts
“It’s actually super easy. You just have to follow your love, right? There is no path. There’s no path till you walk it and you have to be willing to play the fool, so don’t, you know, read the book that you should read, read the book you want to read. Don’t listen to the music that you used to like. You know, take some time to listen to some new music. Take some time to talk to somebody that you don’t normally talk to.
“I guarantee if you do that, you will feel foolish. That’s the point. Play the fool.”
Ethan Hawke’s TEDTalk
New York Times: ‘Ethan Hawke Is Still Taking Ethan Hawke Extremely Seriously’
Taffy Brodesser-Akner writes: “Mr. Hawke found that so moving, the idea of ignoring what the world was telling you about yourself and instead living only by standards that you had, yourself, carefully defined for your life and work. He vowed right then that he would do whatever it took to make good art on his own terms, no matter what anyone said. He would take himself seriously, even if no one else did.”
You can read the profile in its entirely here.
Off Camera with Sam Jones: ‘Ethan Hawke Is Not Scared of Your Criticism’
Why is it we’re told to chase our dreams when we’re younger, but as we get older that is discouraged? Hawke discusses what happened when he — an actor — set out to publish his first novel.
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Thanks for this post. Really good.
He is an excellent actor! From Training Day to the "Before" movies to Boyhood, he just keeps honing his craft. An actor's actor.