--Influential writer and actor Sam Shepard died last summer, leaving a legacy of
writing that takes an unflinching look at the American Dream through many works,
perhaps most famously, True West. That play is now enjoying an acclaimed
revival on Broadway, starring Paul Dano as aspiring screenwriter Austin and
Ethan Hawke as Lee is a wild card of an older brother. Hawke has a long
history with Shepard as an actor, director and co-star.
--How important was
True West to you?
--Well, as a young person, the play it really lit a fire inside of me. And
I saw it on the PBS special you know when I was 14 years old. My mother let me stay
up late to watch it. You know, it's like listening to wolves howl outside your
door or something. You just wanted to run to whoever —I wanted to be a part of that.
It was just something nobody had ever seen before.
And the voice, one of the major
poets of his generation, Sam Shepard. And over the years, I got a copy of
that tape and I watched it over and over again. Then when I was about I guess 25, I
got the opportunity to be— Steppenwolf was doing its 20th anniversary
production—and they were doing Sam Shepard's Buried Child. And he won the
Pulitzer for that play and he was revisiting and rewriting. It was kind of
a big deal. --And Gary Sinise directed
--And Gary Sinise directed. It was an incredible production, incredible thing to be part
of. And I really started my Sam Shepard education. True West was huge for me.
--So, having a play that you know so well, and stepping into it now— I mean I feel like
True West is in my bones. I just know it.
--You know, you say that, and a lot of people do. But
I think it is one of the most famous plays that most people haven't seen. It's
it's famous —you know Sam Shepard and you know the words True West, or you saw
a piece of it, or you think you saw it or... But it is interesting. It's a very
punk-rock play. I've always believed it's kind of
secretly a great play, and kind of a diamond in it's... And you know we're
living in this MeToo era in this era where your constantly hearing the
expression toxic masculinity. And Sam was writing about that long before that was
an expression. These two men, left in charge of their mother's house, who can't
seem to accept one another or different aspects of themselves, to the point where
they leave the house demolished. And they forgot to water the plants, the whole
place is dead. It's a beautiful poem on that subject
matter. And it still has a ton of punk rock in it, you know?
--An off-Broadway
sensation in the 80s, True West finally bowed on Broadway in 2000, starring
Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly as the brothers. The actors in that
production famously alternated roles throughout the run.
--You know, I was friends
with Philip Seymour Hoffman. I admire wildly John C. Reilly. I admire
what they did so much. I auditioned for that production. Sam Rockwell and I, it got
down to, but it was either gonna be Sam Rockwell and I or Phil and John C. And when
I didn't get that part, I thought, Oh, there goes True West for me you know? My
generation's True West. So, I was kind of shocked to get the call cuz I thought, I'm too
old for that? And then Sam you know reminded me that,
you know, it was originally done that my characters supposed to be in his 40s and
that Austin character is supposed to be in his thirties. He wants there to be at
least a decade between them. He wrote it looking at 40, and so Austin is kind of
an idealized version of who he was in his first marriage, and where where he
was sitting before that blew up on him. And Lee is a projection of who he was
worried he was going to become. So, they both have Sam in them. And so I found
myself in this unique position of —when I got offered to play —by the time
time I met James McDonald, who was the director, Sam had died.
And it seemed like it . was no longer conversation about whether
I was the right person to do it. It was the last...you know I felt like I had to
do it.
--From his first exposure to Shepard's work at the age of 14 to now,
over thirty years later, Hawke has become an adept interpreter of the playwright,
as both an actor and as a director, most notably of an acclaimed production of
Lie of the Mind off-Broadway.
--I got to work with Sam in Chicago at Steppenwolf with
Gary Sinise. I was part of the Signature season. I also
got to act with Sam.
--He played your father. --He played my father in Hamlet! He played
Hamlet Senior! --Was there a paternal relationship between you?
--There were days. He was very helpful during my divorce.
He was a really good friend to me in that
way. And Sam was a mercurial guy, you know? I don't claim to be one of his best
friends. But he could be a real ally. And he loved actors. One thing I keep telling
Paul Dano, you know, is how much Sam would love him.
And everybody projects this kind of tough-guy thing on him and they forget
to you know he wrote in the backup Dylan's tour bus with Allen Ginsberg for
a year. I mean Sam's a wild card. He wasn't one thing.
--Hawke made a big splash in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society at the age of 18. The
movie was a hit, but Hawke still felt he had a lot to gain as an artist. He turned
to theatre for that education.
--I've had to learn on my feet. You know I did my
Broadway debut when I was 21?
I mean, I remember going to the audition for the
Seagull, and calling up a buddy of mine who had gone to college, saying, Okay,
have you heard of Anton Chekhov?
I mean, you know. And he's like, Uh, yeah greatest
Russian playwright of all time. Don't say that to anyone else. I was like, Okay cool. How about
the play Seagull? Yep. He's got four masterpieces, and two ancillary ones that
some people consider the lesser or greater than.
Okay which one is The Seagull? A masterpiece.
Okay. What scene are you doing for the audition? And that was on my way to the
audition. I didn't know what the hell I was doing!
--But you didn't give up. You kept going at it. --Exactly. I remember, I
was doing my audition and I was like...
my hands were shaking. And the guy said, Come back
when you learn your lines. You know, the guy was so hostile. And... But I did, and that's
kind of what you have to do. And you either fall in love with Chekov or you don't.
And you start to get it or you don't. --Since
his debut and The Seagull, Hawke has continued to balance his film career
with theater. In the last year alone, he has won acclaim for his performance and
Paul Schrader's First Reformed, the romantic comedy Juliet Naked, and his
passion project Blaze, which he wrote, directed, and produced. All the while, he
knew he'd be coming back to the stage in True West.
--You know, I like to work.
--Clearly. You work a lot.
--I work a lot, and I think that work begets work. And
because I have so many interests, like probably if I wasn't interested in theater,
then that would work less because I'd want to break from the movies. Well, I get
to have a break from movies by doing theater. A few years ago, I did a series
of plays in a row. I did Chekov's first play Ivanov, and I did Brecht's first
play. And then I did the Scottish play. I did Shakespeare. They're three very,
very dark plays, all of which ended with death, and all of which were
very different. But I felt a little bit burned from it. I felt like a different
actor when I came out of it, you know? They were so difficult. But all the
movies that I did, so much easier.
You know, when Paul Schrader came to me and wanted me
to play this priest in spiritual crisis, well, it was a lot easier than Macbeth.
And coming back to Shepard was like coming back after the plays that I'd
done being a little bit out of my wheelhouse, they were stretches, that Lee is like a
jacket I own.
Yeah.