“I kind of feel like we’re pirates. We weren’t supposed to be here.” - Boyhood actor Ethan Hawke on the Oscars red carpet. – – – – – – – – With a win for Best Picture and Best Director at the 2015 Golden Globes, and considered by many movie pundits as the favorite for Best Picture at the 2015 Oscars, it was a shock to many that Boyhood did not walk away with Sunday night’s top prize. The movie that follows a young boy and his family for 12 years has received some of the highest rankings by critics and fans alike ever seen for a film. But it was Birdman that was named the winner, once again stirring criticism about Hollywood rewarding movies that are about movies and acting over films that relate more to the general populous. Along with the 2012 winner Argo, and 2011’s winner The Artist, three of the last four years have seen movies involving movies in the plot win the Best Film Oscar.
Nonetheless, with the wins at the Golden Globes, the nominations for Best Film and Best Director at the Oscars, and Patricia Arquette winning for Best Supporting Actress, the independent and low-budget Boyhood arguably defines the grandest achievement of the great Austin, TX creative experiment, and a triumph of American independent art. The film, its director and Austin resident Richard Linklater, and its distributor IFC (formerly Independent Film Channel), proved that even in this late stage of the metastasizing of the American identity to corporate control of all aspects of life, including art and culture, the right idea, and the perseverance of independent art can still succeed.
Boyhood shouldn’t go unrecognized as an important moment and inspiration to all independent artists that the highest industry accolades can still be achieved. And creativity, not just commercial performance, can still be considered as a worthy measurement in society at large.
In 1991, Richard Linklater made his first film of note called Slacker, chronicling the doings of various Austin, TX characters in a single day, and did so on a budget of less than $25,000. At the time Austin, TX was a creative enclave, but not the one people love to rave about today. It was cheap compared to other desirable cities to live in across the United States, it was a fairly small city, and relatively unheralded to people outside the Texas consciousness.
The explosion of The Outlaws of country music and the greater music scene in Austin in the mid 70’s certainly helped set Austin, TX on its path toward both its creative and independent destiny, but Linklater’s Slacker is where the “weirdness” of Austin, TX was put on display for the rest of the world. Slacker became a cult hit, and the film was subsequently selected by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012 for being “historically and culturally significant”—all for a flick that barely made a million dollars in revenue.
But then the secret of Austin, TX was out. When Slacker was shot, the population of Austin was near 470,000. Today that number has nearly doubled, not counting the massive explosion of Austin’s sprawling suburbs. Many of the locations in Slacker are now unrecognizable from the incredible growth the city has experienced, much of it from retiring baby boomers and transplants from California and other destinations looking to experience the creative energy of Austin, while at the same time inadvertently suffocating it.
Entertainment corridors are being encroached upon by condominium developments full of residents ready to complain about the noise from nearby music venues, or the weirdness of Austin’s homeless and bohemian populations. Older, affordable housing is being bulldozed to erect new expensive high occupancy residences that strain the city’s infrastructure. And next thing you know, much of the artist population is being forced to move out, the city is struggling to keep its creative identity, and the location for Slacker and many of the scenes in Boyhood has become the worst city for traffic in the United States according to some studies. When MTV’s The Real World set up shop in Austin in 2005, Austin’s creative and independent beauty was once again exposed, and eventually exploited on the national stage.
But now Austin and independent art can add Boyhood on its list of achievements, and one that Austin, TX may find hard to top with the challenges its creative community faces. Luckily, Richard Linklater and many others in the Austin creative consciousness were able to take root in the city before the its difficult price points became an all too familiar reality for many in the artistic population.
Boyhood also has a strong music component that parallels Austin’s music legacy. Though it opens to Coldplay’s super hit “Yellow,” and the film’s theme song is “Hero” by California band Family of the Year, there are many songs, snippets, and moments that have strong ties to the Austin music scene and the roots music in general. Some of these include:
Mason Sr. & Mason Jr. at Antone’s in Austin
•Austin Musician Charlie Sexton plays Mason Sr.’s (Ethan Hawke) roommate and friend. He makes two appearances in the film. One is fairly early on after Mason Sr. takes Mason and Samantha to a Houston Astros game, and brings them back to his apartment. The second is when Mason Sr. takes Mason Jr. to a gig at Austin’s legendary music venue Antone‘s after his graduation. NOTE: Antone’s has been forced to move a number of times, and since the filming of Boyhood, which featured its East Riverside location that was only open for about a year, it has since been mothballed completely, hoping to open again in the future, and highlighting the struggles of Austin’s legacy creative infrastructure.
•Old Crow Medicine Show‘s song “My Good Gal” is featured in the film.
•Dale Watson‘s “I Held Onto My Pride And Let Her Go” plays during in the scene where Mason is gets his head shaved by a redneck barber.
•Ethan Hawke sings Guy Clark‘s “LA Freeway” during the camping scene. Ethan also sings two other songs in the film, including one where different family members take turns singing verses.
•The Austin Steamers perform “Old Black Crow” at Austin’s legendary Continental Club during the later portions of the movie when Mason and his girlfriend are exploring Austin.
•Texas artist Freddy Fender‘s song “Que Mala” is featured in the later portions of the film.
•And Charlie Sexton‘s “The Dog Song” is performed at the above-mentioned Antone’s venue.
Unfortunately, the music industry doesn’t enjoy the same equality for quality and creativity as the movie industry does. Boyhood being nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards would be the music equivalent of Sturgill Simpson or Jason Isbell being nominated for the Best Album Grammy. But Boyhood, even without a win, elevates the perspective of the public about independent art. A couple of years after Richard Linklater’s Slacker, music artist Beck released a single called “Loser.” In 2015, Beck won the Grammy for Best Album for a work he recorded before he even had a label to distribute it.
Independent film, independent music, and independent art can still persevere, and even reach the topmost tier of the industry, if it is given a chance, and if it’s given a place to foster.
“Garth Brooks did for country music what pantyhose did for finger fucking.”
This is the quote that has been attributed to Waylon Jennings that you are likely to see in much greater frequency now that Garth Brooks has come out of retirement. For some, it is the totality of their argument against Garth. Forget all his music, past and future, whatever merits his music might have beyond the flashy stage show, however much the test of time has validated his music or not. To tens of thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands of people, the totality of their Garth hatred, the alpha and omega of their anti-Garth argument, rests on this quote. And if you don’t believe me, just mention Garth’s name in the right (or wrong) company, it it will come flying out at you unsolicited.
The problem is there’s no verifiable records of Waylon ever saying it. And if he did ever say it, that he is the originator of the quote. But just like the urban myth that Kentucky Fried Chicken had to legally change their name to KFC because the birds they use are so genetically altered they can’t be classified as chickens, if you parrot something enough, people take it as fact.
If I had a hunch, not based on fact or research whatsoever, I would say that at some point Waylon Jennings probably did utter those words about Garth, and they probably made it out to the greater world through his son Shooter Jennings. But I’ve also heard from some who say that Poodie Locke—Willie Nelson’s long-time stage manager and one prone to such humor—was the first to say it. Maybe Waylon picked it up there. But I can’t verify that Poodie Locke said it either. There are records of the “_____ did for ____ what pantyhose did for finger fucking” phrase being used for other purposes way before Garth Brooks had even released his first album, so is it really fair to attribute the analogy to anyone?
When you start to try and find the origination point of the quote, and any factual information on if Waylon truly said it or coined it, you start finding a tremendous amount of fiction. The simple fact is the quote is so juicy, and many people just want it to be real so badly, they’re willing to look the other way and proffer it up for human consumption regardless of the truth.
Ethan Hawke
The first record of the quote being used goes back to of all places, Willie Nelson’s 70th Birthday Party in 2003, and from of all people, actor Ethan Hawke. In April of 2009, Ethan Hawke penned a feature on Kris Kristofferson for Rolling Stone. In the feature, Ethan Hawke recounts a story from 2003 where Kris Kristofferson and Toby Keith get into a verbal argument, and Kristofferson says the Waylon quote in response to Toby Keith’s demand, “None of that lefty shit out there tonight, Kris.”
Here’s the complete interchange from Rolling Stone, as dictated by Ethan Hawke:
“Up from the basement came one of country music’s brightest stars (who shall remain nameless). At that moment in time, the Star had a monster radio hit about bombing America’s enemies back into the Stone Age.
“Happy birthday,” the Star said to Willie, breezing by us. As he passed Kristofferson in one long, confident stride, out of the corner of his mouth came “None of that lefty shit out there tonight, Kris.”
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Kris growled, stepping forward.
“You heard me,” the Star said, walking away in the darkness.
“Don’t turn your back to me, boy,” Kristofferson shouted, not giving a shit that basically the entire music industry seemed to be flanking him.
“You ever worn your country’s uniform?” Kris asked rhetorically.
“What?”
“Don’t ‘What?’ me, boy! You heard the question. You just don’t like the answer.” He paused just long enough to get a full chest of air. “I asked, ‘Have you ever served your country?’ The answer is, no, you have not. Have you ever killed another man? Huh? Have you ever taken another man’s life and then cashed the check your country gave you for doing it? No, you have not. So shut the fuck up!” I could feel his body pulsing with anger next to me. “You don’t know what the hell you are talking about!”
“Whatever,” the young Star muttered.
Kristofferson took a deep inhale and leaned against the wall, still vibrating with adrenaline. He looked over at Willie as if to say, “Don’t say a word.” Then his eyes found me. “You know what Waylon Jennings said about guys like him?” he whispered.
I shook my head.
“They’re doin’ to country music what pantyhose did to finger-fuckin’.” – – – – – – – – – – Yes, as a traditional country fan, maybe you’re pumping your fists. “Hell yeah, you tell ‘em Kris!” The problem is, Ethna Hawke’s story is, and was, complete bullshit, including the Waylon Jennings quote. And this was verified later by both Kris Kristofferson, and Toby Keith.
In the aftermath of the Ethan Hawke story, Kris Kristofferson told The Tennessean: ”I have to say, I have no memory of talking so tough to anyone at Willie’s birthday party — least of all to Toby Keith, (if that’s who the nameless star is), for whom I have nothing but admiration and respect.”
As for Toby Keith, he was a little more heated about the situation, as can be seen in this clip from the 2009 ACM Awards that happened right after the story was published.
But the damage had already been done. The Waylon quote was so juicy, and the clarifications about the story so buried compared to the reach of the original Rolling Stone article, the quote became a matter of public record. In fact some people want the Waylon Jennings quote about Garth Brooks to be true so bad, as well as the fictitious Toby Keith vs. Kris Kristofferson interchange, that they say the clarifications by Toby Keith and Kris Kristofferson are just saving face, and if fact both the quote, and Ethan Hawke’s story are still true.
Of course beyond Kris and Keith’s clarifications, Ethan Hawke and the story’s defenders also have to figure out how to resolve the fact that Toby Keith, flag waver or not, is and was a registered Democrat. So for Keith to say “None of that lefty shit,” seems very unrealistic. Also the quote from Kris from the story, “Have you ever killed another man?” seems to allude that he has. But this gives into the common misconception that Kris Kristofferson saw combat as a helicopter pilot in the Army when in fact he was stationed in Germany during The Vietnam War, and never exchanged live fire.
Though Ethan Hawke’s fictitious story had the Waylon Jennings quote about Garth Brooks going down in 2003, it wasn’t until 2005 when we find the first documented source of the quote in print—at least that can be found on the internet. It comes from an East Bay Express feature on Shooter Jennings, but interestingly, Shooter isn’t giving the quote, it is used to preface the Shooter interview and is recounted by the author of the story. This was 3 1/2 years before the quote would wind up in Rolling Stone and become a matter of public record. Again, it’s very likely that Shooter probably did hear his father use the quote, but was Waylon the originator?
This also opens up the second problem with this supposed Waylon Jennings quote, which is that it is no longer relevant in the forum of public discourse. For example, in the 2005 feature, Shooter says he thinks country music became more about show through Garth. But later in 2013 in an interview with the Charleston City Paper, Shooter says,
“Garth Brooks is as country as shit. Back then it was like, what the fuck is going on. This guy is terrible. This isn’t country music.” Jennings says. “I would take that any day now. That means the bar has been lowered so far that we’re like, please. I would listen to only Garth Brooks all day if that’s what I could get.”
As Saving Country Music once spelled out in detail, time has been kind to the music of Garth Brooks, and this change of heart by Waylon’s son has played out in the hearts of many country fans over time. In fact when Shooter first spoke on Garth in 2005, Garth had already been retired for half a decade. Garth hasn’t even been around for 13 years to hate on. But some, including many who have the Waylon quote top-of-mind and at-the-ready any time Garth’s name is uttered, use it as a crutch to continue their war on Garth Brooks.
Another die-hard Garth Brooks hater turned apologist has been singer-songwriter Todd Snider. Todd had a beef with one of Garth’s songwriters after a dispute over the song “Beer Run”. Todd also interfaced with Garth’s alt. rock character Chris Gaines at one point, and told defaming stories as part of his stage schtick for years. But in Todd’s new book released in 2014 called I Never Met A Story I Didn’t Like, Snider reconciles his Garth hatred, and says from his personal interactions with the entertainer, he was more kind to him than most in the music business.
I loved Garth Brooks. I was, and am, a very big fan. I think Garth Brooks fucked up country music for a while, through no fault of his own: he made music so good and so successful that tons of people came along after him trying to imitate what he did. Garth fucked up country music like Kurt Cobain fucked up rock.
Because of Garth’s massive success, there’s a bit of a push and pull in Nashville about him. When you sell more records than anyone has ever sold, you tend to make more people jealous than have ever been jealous of a singer.
It’s a crock that I think prevails in this country: we bully the people who entertain us. We get on the computer and bully them. We buy magazines with pictures of them where they look fat or drunk or imperfect. And we suppose that those people’s success excuses our meanness.
Read The Full Story
Another interesting thing about the Waylon quote about Garth, and something that leads to speculation if it’s true or not, is that the exact same quote has been attributed to different people. It has been attributed to Willie Nelson and David Allan Coe for example, and to Kris Kristofferson directly because of the Rolling Stone piece. In 2012, the alt-country band Deer Tick took to Facebook and attributed the quote to Merle Haggard, illustrating the urban myth nature of the Waylon/Garth quote.
Interestingly, in January of 2012, Merle Haggard was read the supposed Waylon Jennings quote by 11th Hour, and Merle’s response was,
Well. I think, Waylon got dumber with age. I don’t know. I love Waylon, but he was awful critical of different things. He just got grouchy. I love listening to Waylon and Willie and Johnny. They still set my ears to burning … I think what Waylon meant by that statement was that somebody ought to be able to walk out on a stage with a guitar and put on a good show that people can enjoy. We don’t really need explosions to enjoy a concert do we?
Whether the quote is completely true and coined by Waylon Jennings himself, was borrowed by him from someone else, or the entire thing is a total fabrication of urban myth, the simple fact is that the Waylon quote about Garth is no longer a statement that in any way does the complex perspective that one needs to understand Garth Brooks any bit of justice. Garth started his career a quarter century ago, and hasn’t released a new album in over 13 years. And Waylon Jennings has been dead for a decade.
Here’s some quotes that can be verified that they actually came from Waylon Jennings because they can be found in his autobiography. They’re nearly 20 years old, but relevant as ever to the conversation.
Of course, the next generation better not believe everything they hear. At this point, I’ve been accused of all manner of carousing. Mostly, it’s something that I might have done, or would have done, or couldn’t even imagine doing. Pretty soon it’s etched into stone. If I led the life that people think I did, I’d be a hundred and fifty years old and weigh about forty pounds …
The thing is, we’re in this together, the old, the new, the one-hit wonders and the lifetime achievers, the writers and the session pickers and the guy who sells the T-shirts. The folks that come to the shows, and the ones that stay at home and watch it on TNN. Those who remember Hank Williams, and those who came on board about the time of Mark Chestnut, who named his baby boy after me …
Ethan Hawke, in full Ethan Green Hawke (born November 6, 1970, Austin,Texas, U.S.), American actor, director, and novelist known for his versatility.
Hawke, who was raised in New Jersey, began acting while in high school and at age 15 made his film debut in Explorers (1985), playing a teenager who builds a spaceship. In 1988 he enrolled in Carnegie Mellon University to study drama but dropped out after a few months to take a role as a prep school student in Dead Poets Society (1989). The film, which also starred Robin Williams as a charismatic English teacher, was a critical success. Hawke subsequently worked regularly, and by age 25 he had starred in 15 motion pictures, including White Fang (1991), an adaptation of Jack London’s novel; Alive (1993), a drama based on the true story of a Uruguayan rugby team’s fight for survival after its plane crashes in the Andes Mountains; and Reality Bites (1994), which centred on a group of twentysomethings trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives after college.
In 1995 Hawke starred in Richard Linklater’s romantic drama Before Sunrise, which follows two tourists who meet on a train and spend a day together. Three years later he starred opposite Uma Thurman in the sci-fi thriller Gattaca; the couple married in 1998 and divorced in 2004. Hawke’s other films in the 1990s include Great Expectations (1998), a modern take on the classic novel by Charles Dickens; Linklater’s The Newton Boys (1998), about the adventures of a gang of bank robbers in 1920s Texas; and Snow Falling on Cedars (1999), a love story set against the backdrop of Japanese-American internment during World War II. He then starred as the title character in Hamlet (2000), a modern adaptation of the Shakespeare play.
In 2001 Hawke made his directorial debut with Chelsea Walls, about the people who live at the infamous Chelsea Hotel in New York City. That year he starred opposite Denzel Washington in the crime drama Training Day, directed by Antoine Fuqua. Hawke’s performance as a police officer new to a corrupt narcotics squad earned him his first Academy Award nomination. He continued to collaborate with Linklater in the chamber piece Tape (2001), the ensemble-based Fast Food Nation (2006), and theBefore Sunrise sequels Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013), both of which he cowrote; the two screenplays netted him Oscar nominations. He also played the father in Linklater’s coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014), which was shot over a period of 12 years. For his performance, Hawke earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. His other screen credits include Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007), Fuqua’s Brooklyn’s Finest (2009), and the unconventional family drama 10,000 Saints (2015). Hawke also was featured in the horror moviesDaybreakers (2009), Sinister (2012), and The Purge (2013).
While maintaining his career in film, Hawke worked extensively in the theatre. He cofounded theMalaparte Theater Company in New York City in 1991, and he made his Broadway debut in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull a year later. After Malaparte dissolved in 2000, Hawke returned to Broadway in Henry IV (2003) and in Tom Stoppard’s sprawling The Coast of Utopia (2006); his performance in the latter as Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin earned him a Tony Award nomination for best featured actor. He also acted in Off-Broadway productions of plays by Chekhov, Sam Shepard, and David Rabe and won an Obie Award for his portrayal of an ex-Marine contending with his dysfunctional family inBlood from a Stone (2011). In 2009 Hawke toured internationally in productions of The Cherry Orchard and The Winter’s Tale that were directed by Sam Mendes. His own directorial efforts for the stage include Things We Want (2007), Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind (2010), and Clive (2013). Hawke also directed the documentary Seymour: An Introduction (2014), about pianist Seymour Bernstein.
In addition, Hawke was the author of the novels The Hottest State (1996; film 2006) and Ash Wednesday(2002).
Ethan Hawke’s latest film PREDESTINATION has quite a bit of buzz surrounding it, including several wins at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. In celebration of the film opening in theaters and On Demand this Friday, WAMG sat down with Hawke in a small roundtable discussion to talk about his latest film, BOYHOOD, and time-travel. Check it out below.
PREDESTINATION chronicles the life of a Temporal Agent (Ethan Hawke) sent on an intricate series of time-travel journeys designed to prevent future killers from committing their crimes. Now, on his final assignment, the Agent must stop the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time and prevent a devastating attack in which thousands of lives will be lost.
What were your first thoughts when you read this script?
Ethan Hawke : I need to read it again. I’ve never had that feeling. First of all I wasn’t even sure what part they were offering me. ‘Am I the bartender or am I the other guy? Or wait is he a guy?’ That aspect of it was really fun. Even though I didn’t get it I knew I wanted to be involved with it because it was just so smart. It reminded me a little bit about that movie BRAZIL. You know when BRAZIL ends and you say, ‘What the hell just happened?’ But I enjoyed it. Most movies are so obvious anyway. Particularly for a person that has been making movies for a long time. I spend my life reading scripts so I get ahead of them all the time. “Oh, she dropped the pen. Oh, I get it. Forty pages now and they’ll find the pen and that’s how they’ll know.’ It gets so tedious. This I had no idea what was happening. And yet the language was so good and the ideas were so interesting. I love DAYBREAKERS too.
Were you a fan of the time travel movies in general? Do you have a favorite?
Ethan Hawke : My favorite is probably all those old ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes. They are so good and so well shot. A lot of them have to do with time travel. Somebody finds themselves out of time or in a new time. I always found them so interesting and in a way when I read this I thought, ‘You know what? This could be is a feature length of the greatest ‘The Twilight Zone’ episode ever,’ where you are like ‘Wait, what?’ Because ‘The Twilight Zone’ always had that great thing where there is some twist at the end where you are like, ‘oh they are on a different planet.’ I think those episodes from Twilight are some of the best things ever.
If you could time travel where would you go?
Ethan Hawke : I think the first thing that I would do is want to go visit my kids when they are older.
The future?
Ethan Hawke : I would want to go to the future. I want to see how they did. That would be the thing that most interests me. The past isn’t that interesting to me.
I feel like this film is so completely different to anything you have done in the past. What attracted you to it?
Ethan Hawke : Peter Michael. In a way this could be a good double feature with GATTACA. They are different but they fall into the kind of science fiction which is my favorite where they make you think. People often hear science fiction they picture STAR WARS or ray guns. I like the science fiction that gives you an excuse to talk about really sophisticated ideas. This movie is making a case for the inner connectedness of man or the masculine feminine side of every self, that we all are two halves of one masculine feminine identify and that it’s actually at war with itself through space and time. Hunting itself and until it stops hunting itself there is going to be violence. You can make a strong case that, that’s what that movie is about.
What is the difference in your performance for something like this where the theme is allegory and where those philosophical ideas are sub-text, verses something like the before trilogy where it is all text and what is begin said between the characters?
Ethan Hawke : That’s a good question. The work I have done with Linklater is naturalism too at an extreme degree. Those movies almost forfeit plot. There almost is no plot. The event of the movie is time. What time does to a family and what time does to romantic love. Time is the event. Where as a movie like PREDESTINATION there is a plot. This happens and then that happens so it becomes more straight forward story telling. Therefore, they are each hard in their own way. My work with Rick really asks me to kind of blur the line between character and performer and create a full completion of imagination so you think those people exist. In this its really more about you are the actor but your inner workings are not as important as the plot. You are part of a story that is being told so you have to see yourself as a servant to the story. It’s not interesting how my character feels about any given event if it doesn’t help tell the story. If I decide that my character is actually scared of driving, it doesn’t really help. Where as if I wanted to something like that in boyhood it’s interesting. All that stuff just helps.
You say you want to go to the future to see your kids grow up. How does fatherhood change you?
Ethan Hawke : Very hard to say anything worth reading about. Parenthood is part of life. It’s a little bit like friendship and love. All those big subjects. Fatherhood is definitely a part of who I am now. I have four kids so it’s just the context in which I see everything. The fun of working on boy hood was that there was a place to put all that thinking. I help Lorelei’s baby so I get to do scenes with her. It’s an amazing miracle in a way. What’s wonderful about it is that it makes you constantly meditate on how wonderful it is to be alive. We had this joke on set that the ad line for the movie should be ‘PREDESTINATION, go fuck yourself!’ In a lot of the buddhist theories they say if we are all traveling through time and we have all been reincarnated as our mother and each others father then we actually were our own mother at some point. We are all one living organism. When you look at parenthood from that context it’s kind of an illusion that we are ethos persons parent. We are actually part of a culture. We are part of a time period we live in. We don’t know whats happening with the planet. There is a larger thing at work. That’s what I love about science fiction. It let’s you talk about those ideas without talking about religion. Where people have those knee jerk things where ‘I’m Christian so I don’t think about that or I’m Muslim so I don’t think about that.’ It lets you just think about the idea of it.
What was your collaboration with Sarah Snook like?
Ethan Hawke : It’s hard to talk about without ruining it. When I did GATTACA one of the great pleasures with that movie was being a part of Jude Law’s performance. It was amazing. I knew this guy was the real deal and that he is going to be around forever. I felt that way about Sarah. So confident and so cool. In fact this whole movie hinges on her being brilliant. It has to be an unknown actress. It would be one thing if it was Kate Winslet, but if it was Kate Winslet the twist of the movie would be ruined and you would just watch her act as appose to falling into the story which is what Sarah gave us. I knew we had to be symbiotic but what was hard about it was to both be true to it but not give it away. That was the weird little dance. If we were too cute with it then everybody would know what was up. That’s what I mean by a lot of what we are doing is story telling. At first glance that first scene is a bartender talking to a young man walking into a bar. Well watch the movie a second time and its a different scene. You say no wait, he’s meeting himself. There is something almost moving about it. But if I play that too much the first time you watch it you will get it. I can’t let you get it the first time but I have to be true to it so that the second you get it and it becomes more interesting. This is one of the few movies that it really is better the second time you see it.
Did you have to talk with Sarah on how to talk manly and mimic you?
Ethan Hawke : Yes and no. We worked on the parts and go to play those scenes with each other. I had to do the scenes with myself at the end of the movie. I worked on those scenes with Sarah where she got to do it and I got to do the scene that she had to do with herself. She’s funny and she’s smart and she watched movies of me when I was that age. It was also not about us imitating each other but finding a larger truth to who that fictional person is.
How many times have you seen this movie?
Ethan Hawke : Well I feel like I have seen it a thousand times because I worked on it but I have only seen it twice.
Do you enjoy watching yourself on film… and going back to the older films?
Ethan Hawke : I don’t enjoy it or not enjoy it. It’s not something I do. Hopefully people will like this movie and twelve years from now I’ll see fifteen minutes of it on a television one night or someone will be doing a retrospective about the Spierigs and I’ll be there and i’ll see a part of it. Mostly I enjoy going to film festivals and seeing them with an audience for the first time. To be at the BOYHOOD screening when nobody knew that the movie really took place over twelve years. Now when people go see it they heard that. When it showed it was just an untitled Richard Linklater film and you felt the audience say ‘Wow, this kid is growing up before our eyes.’ You felt the penny drop and that can never happen again. I like seeing the DP’s (Director of Photography) work because you get so involved with it on the day. It’s funny to see which take they picked. Simple little stuff like that. ‘Oh, he went that way. I liked it better the other way.’ That aspect of watching it is fun. It’s moving for me to see scenes with River Pheonix now or Philip Seymour Hoffman. Those things are all changes over time. All of a sudden that scene in BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD means something else to me. I didn’t know that would be the last time I would work with Phil. I thought it would be the first time.
In BOYHOOD you get to see yourself 10 to 12 years ago and get to see yourself change. Over those years how do you feel you have changed? Over the next 10 to 12 years what do you want to become?
Ethan Hawke : I wish I could know what I could learn ten years from now already so I didn’t have to learn it. I’m always amazed at how much stays the same. The weird thing to me about BEFORE MIDNIGHT for example and when you watch it in relationship to BEFORE SUNRISE, which was shot eighteen years earlier, how much of the character just stays the same. I mean the face is falling apart and all that stuff but the essence of the person is the same. We learn things and I feel we get better at showing our true self or we get worse at it. We either get cleaner or more twisted and I think the people that age the best are the people who kind of untwist themselves the best and the people who suffer the most get more and more twisted. Youth always covers up a lot of problems because its attractive and fun and then as you get older things get revealed.
You were talking about how the characters motions need to be in service with the plot. What do you do to make sure that human element is still present?
Ethan Hawke : That’s being an actor. Sometimes I’ll be on a set and some actors complain saying ‘This line isn’t any good.’ You have to make it good. That’s why you are being paid. Our job is to infuse humanity in many frames as possible. That’s why it is so hard to act well in a TV show because the plot is ruling everything. ‘She found the clue. Who did it? He did it. She did it.’ There is no time to be human. If you have ever seen Vincent D’onofrio in ‘Law & Order : Criminal Intent,’ he could do it. There is all this plot yet there is human being in the middle of it. The best actors can do that. I always joke when people ask ‘Is it challenging?’ It’s never challenging to work with a good director on a great script. People say Daniel Day Lewis is great in LINCOLN. Yeah he was. He better be. It’s hard to be good in an episode of ‘Matlock.’ If you can’t be good with Tony Christian and Spielberg and those guys then you suck.
BOYHOOD got named film of the year by New York Film Critics Circle Awards. There is a lot of Oscar buzz about it as well. What is your take on that?
Ethan Hawke : I’m just in shock. I made eight movies with Rick and I loved them all. I believe in him completely and I am so happy that people are finally understanding that this is a really serious film maker of this time period. He is the most humble guy. He is so down to earth and fun to be with and he celebrates so many other people. He has championed so many young film makers. I think of his nineteen movies seventeen of them are really great. The other two are damn good. He’s really special. But I still can’t believe. I thought WAKING LIFE was genius but nobody cared about it. The before trilogies were my favorite things that happened to me and only three people saw that movie. It’s been wonderful that this movie has connected with people.
PREDESTINATION OPENS IN THEATERS AND ON DEMAND JANUARY 9TH
Ethan Hawke as drone pilot Tom Egan in the film "Good Kill."
By Paul D. Shinkman
Sitting in a posh suite of a boutique hotel in Washington's fashionable Georgetown neighborhood, with at least a day's worth of room service trays balanced on an ornate coffee table, film director Andrew Niccol readily admits the Department of Defense opted out of cooperating on his new film "Good Kill," which depicts his interpretation of the strife faced by modern drone pilots. The "period piece," as he quips, is set during the height of drone warfare in 2010 and is not meant to be a documentary, but rather a medium to jump-start what he considers an overdue public conversation on unmanned warfare.
Ethan Hawke, the star of the film, interjects.
"Whenever you guys say 'DOD,' I know you're thinking 'Department of Defense,' but I always think 'Day Out of Days,'" Hawke says, grinning through two-day stubble as he reclines on a cushioned couch with his tie loosened. He describes the staple Hollywood document that lays out a movie's production schedule and is given to actors, producers and crews. "I'm like, 'Why is he talking about the Day Out of Days?'"
It's a perfect moment of candor to explain how the pair, who previously teamed up on the dystopian drama "Gattaca," view their latest work. It is easy for those ensconced in national security and foreign affairs to forget perhaps how little the public knows about terms like "unmanned aerial vehicle" or "remotely piloted aircraft" – or even that the U.S. remains at war in Afghanistan after 14 years and through the CIA has expanded the post-Sept. 11 hunt for al-Qaida into tenuously legal battles in Pakistan and Yemen.
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"You'd be surprised how little knowledge there is out in the public at large about exactly how a drone strike happens, which we've never seen," Niccol explains. "And also the public has no idea about the effect it's having on the people who are performing the strikes.
"We've never had this type of soldier before."
Hawke admits that before beginning research for the movie he didn't know what a drone was nor how they operate generally, let alone in the midst of an active battlefield. Two years ago, he wouldn't have known enough to have an opinion, or even to ask a question.
"There's no doubt that the drone program is an excellent and efficient and powerful tool. The question is how we use it," he says. "The atomic bomb was dropped long before the public had a real meditative thought about whether that was a wise decision or not. That happened, and we've spent years processing that it happened."
The two believe their latest movie will help the average citizen better understand what it's like to serve as a "virtual warrior." It depicts a former F-16 fighter pilot who traded in yet another combat tour to instead accept a posting to Creech Air Force Base, an outpost within Las Vegas' neon halo from which he leads a team flying surveillance and attack drones over Afghanistan and other faraway battlefields. The character can see his family each day, though the nature of his work puts a strain on his marriage. His commander plays the de facto narrator, constantly griping to his subordinates about his own misgivings regarding drone operations as a way to convince the audience that they, too, should criticize what's happening on the screen.
Ethan Hawke as Tom Egan and Bruce Greenwood as Jack Johns in "Good Kill."
The movie gets a lot of things right, including its depiction of "signature strikes," or drone attacks that are justified only by a target's pattern of action and not his or her specific identity. President Barack Obama and CIA Director John Brennan have hinted that the criteria for a kill may be strengthened, though the revelation last month that the U.S. had accidentally killed two Western hostages, including one American, in a strike confirmed the former rationale was in place as recently as January.
"Good Kill" also accurately depicts some of the stresses facing drone pilots, who may spend hours diligently observing a potential enemy hideout to glean intelligence.They might, as depicted in the movie, have to watch a combatant rape a woman, but because that doesn't pertain to their rules of engagement, they would not be able to do anything about it.
And unlike their deployed counterparts who remain in a wartime mindset around the clock, these fighters may just minutes later be standing in their backyards barbecuing with friends, unable to tell their spouses the details of what they experienced at work.
There are, however, some glaring holes in the content of the movie, according to Air Force sources. And they extend beyond the usual Hollywood depictions of the military that invariably cause veterans to cringe. (It would be incredibly rare for an Air Force pilot to land on a Navy vessel, for example, as Hawke's character reminisces about at one point, let alone for one to perform a night landing on an aircraft carrier in an F-16, which is not designed to be compatible with American carriers. And despite the deeply rooted wishes of many jet jockeys who spoke with U.S. News, young flyboys cannot take a first date for a flight in the $150 million fighter jet, even if it's January Jones.)
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Primarily, the Air Force rejects the depiction in the movie that most drone pilots eventually doubt the virtues of their work.
"The general public may walk away with the perception that a good percentage, or a significant percentage, suffer from moral injury or [post-traumatic stress disorder] and elevated alcohol use or alcohol abuse," says Wayne Chappelle, a clinical psychologist for the Air Force and a principal adviser to top combat commanders on airmen's mental health. "That's just simply not the case."
Studies Chappelle conducted in 2010 and 2012 are readily available online, as the latest numbers will be later this month. Fewer than 17 percent of drone pilots experienced and expressed cynicism about their jobs in 2010, and that amount had dropped significantly by 2012 following new Air Force initiatives.
It does not appear that the producers of "Good Kill" consulted these studies, Chappelle laments, nor did they make any effort to contact him, he says.
"Yes, there are [remotely piloted aircraft] pilots that do see [post-traumatic stress] in response to some of the missions they have participated in. That's very natural," he says. "But it's not the epidemic, nor is it the crisis that has been previously reported."
There is also a scene in the movie in which Hawke's commander (who perpetually reminds Hawke, and thus the audience, just how terrible his life is) tells a hangar full of young recruits, "Half of you were recruited in malls, because you are a bunch of f------ gamers."
The Air Force says it has never engaged in such recruitment strategies.
Indeed, only 30 percent of current drone operators weren't combat pilots before accepting their new position. The Air Force is trying to get the number of recruits who go straight into drone operations up to about 90 percent of the force, though that remains a faraway goal.
The ethical dilemmas in the movie largely center around the unseen voice of "Langley," the CIA boss who commands the central drone unit via speakerphone to cease recording missions and start engaging in strikes that are tantamount to war crimes. He forces the crew to attack those who appear to be innocent under the justification that the value of killing a nearby target outweighs civilian casualties. And he requests that the crew perform "follow-ups" or "double taps" to attack first responders coming to the scene of a Hellfire missile explosion.
Ethan Hawke and January Jones as Tom and Molly Egan in "Good Kill."
Niccol says all of the strikes in "Good Kill" have occurred in real life, and were based largely on anecdotes from the film's consultants and from information he gleaned from WikiLeaks. He admits, however, that the two primary advisers to the film who reportedly were former Air Force drone pilots wouldn't comment on operations that took place under the purview of the CIA.
Two drone operators who spoke with U.S. News about their experiences say it is not uncommon to be "sheep dipped" out of the normal chain of command and into missions at the behest of the CIA, though the resulting missions are usually more benign than the movie depicts.
All pilots are also trained in the law of armed conflict, international regulations that govern what they are and are not allowed to do behind the throttle and joystick.
"It's always been very clear-cut," says Chris Stiles, a former drone operator for the U.S. Army who retired from the service in 2009. "You can always tell who the enemy combatant is, who is engaging something, and you never engage a target that wasn't fighting. The rules of engagement prevent that. If the target isn't actively engaged, then they usually like to grab them up with a ground component and use them for intelligence."
Drone pilots also are endowed with the right to question orders they believe illegal or unethical, says Air Force Maj. Lewis Pine, who flew B-1 bombers before he was switched over to drone operations from 2006-2013.
"Our folks by all means have the right to speak up and ask for more information," says Pine, who now works for Air Combat Command at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia. "They have an obligation to raise their hand and ask questions."
Despite its Hollywood stylizing, Hawke insists the movie is not designed to drive a political agenda, but solely to, as Niccol also says, "open the debate."
And if the current state of warfare is any indication, that debate will have plenty of opportunities to unfold.
"There's a conversation that's not happening in a large public way about what the drones are capable of and what the future of them is," Hawke says. "I'll be so curious in 20 years to see what this movie looks like. This is probably the infancy of an unmanned military, whether it's tanks or whether it's full-on robots running into battlefields, whether it's unmanned Humvees operating remotely."
The actor discusses the effect of addiction on artistry while promoting his new Chet Baker biopic at the Toronto film festival
Ethan Hawke talked about the effect of drugs and alcohol on acting while promoting his lead role in a Chet Baker biopic at the Toronto film festival.
The Oscar-nominated star of Training Day spoke about addiction, given the key role it plays in his new drama Born to Be Blue, which premieres at the festival.
“I had a friend who directed Elizabeth Taylor and she had this theory that she was better when she was drunk,” he said. “She wasn’t, it’s just that she was less nervous. She enjoyed it more drunk. Well, guess what? So would I.
He rejected the claim that drugs have aided Chet Baker and other musicians to further their art. “I don’t believe that the drugs helped Chet Baker play,” he said. “I believe that he believed it. There’s another path to get there. Dizzy Gillespie has a family man and had a huge career and played without any drugs.”
Hawke went on to explain that the entertainment industry often means that struggles with self-belief can turn to addiction.
“The life of people in the arts means you’re at war with your anxiety,” he said. “Amy Winehouse, Chet Baker, Kurt Cobain, they’re self-medicating and the talent is in the essence of them. The drugs are in the way. They think that the drugs unlock the talent but the drugs just deal with the anxiety. They have nothing to do with the talent.”
Born to be Blue is an alternative take on the life of the famous jazz musician, adding fictionalised elements to the story of his life. It’s low budget and Hawke addressed the variety in his career of late which sees him making small titles, such as Boyhood, and genre films like The Purge.
“One, it’s extremely practical,” he said. “If all you do is small indie movies then you go broke so that’s a drag. The other is that I actually have a real love for movies and it isn’t limited to one kind of movie. I’m really proud of Sinister and whether you like the movie or not, I gave something personal of me in the same way that I tried to do with Boyhood.”
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