-One box...
of transcripts that I have. -Are you kidding me?
-Like, it's hundreds of thousands of pages.
I'm trying to ask all my friends
to make these audios come alive.
And I'm trying to turn it into kind of, like,
a play with voices.
A community looking back.
And so that's what I'm doing here with you,
and Sammy Rockwell's gonna read
the director of "Cool Hand Luke."
Laura Linney is gonna do Joanne Woodward.
Zoe Kazan is gonna play Paul's first wife.
Karen Allen is playing Joanne's stepmother.
Josh Hamilton is gonna read the director of "The Sting."
Vincent D'Onofrio is gonna do John Huston.
George Clooney agreed to read Paul.
So, we're having fun
kind of revisiting the generation before us.
-Welcome back to "Late Night."
We're here with Ethan Hawke, everybody.
That was a clip from "The Last Movie Stars."
So, one, you're making this during a pandemic,
but that's not the only reason
you reach out to your group of friends who are actors.
You had another reason that you asked them all
to do voice-over work in this.
-Well, the family had an amazing thing.
It was this -- you see it in that clip right there.
They had transcriptions of interviews
that Paul had done to write his own memoir.
He had had his best friend interview
all his closest friends, nannies, co-workers,
best friends, everybody that knew them well.
But he never wrote the memoir.
So, these interviews were sitting there
'cause he got bored with the whole idea once
and just set them on fire, destroyed them,
got rid of them.
But the transcripts still exist.
But I was so frustrated when I took this job
and I was like, "If I had the audiotapes,
I could make a really great film, but I don't."
And then I had the idea -- well, I am an actor,
and it is an international pandemic,
and nobody's doing anything,
and so I'll just reenact these interviews.
And then I'll have the audiotapes,
of which I could cut them together.
So, you see, that's what I'm talking about there
in that video, and it ended up being
really fun because the movie is a meditation on acting
and I'm using actors to guide you through that meditation.
-And it's really nice and natural.
Like I was saying to you backstage,
like, at first, it's, "Oh, this is such a strange construct."
But then you immediately become...
I don't know, it's really...
You know, when George Clooney is reading Paul Newman,
it just seems to make perfect sense.
-Just starts to flow. I remember...
Scorsese is exec producer on this
and he was giving me notes and he was like,
"I started watching this, and for about five minutes,
I thought you lost your mind."
[ Laughter ]
"I don't want to see another Zoom call as long as I live."
-Yeah. -"And then I thought,
'Wait, I think this is working.'"
And I was like, "Yeah, yeah. Alright, we got it. We got it."
-It made me really happy when Scorsese showed up
because the first five minutes, I thought,
"God, no actor knows how to light their own Zoom,"
and even Scorsese looks bad on Zoom.
[ Laughter ] -He looks better than most.
-He looks better than most, but it's not great.
Yeah.
You met Paul Newman exactly one time.
-One time. -And with kind of high stakes,
I will say. -Very high stakes.
I was doing a Tennessee Williams play.
The play actually had been written for Paul Newman
back in the '50s.
It's called "Camino Real," and he and Joanne came to see it.
And I remember I was really sitting
in my dressing room mirror and they...
[ Laughter ]
There's, like, a gremlin down there grabbing my arm.
[ Laughter ]
They were standing behind me
and I couldn't believe, there they were,
and he was talking about doing "Sweet Bird of Youth"
and he'd been in the original production.
And I'm just staring at them.
And he said the first time he met Tennessee,
he said, you know, "Nice to meet you,"
and Tennessee said, "Oh, yeah, nice to meet you."
And Paul said, "Well, actually, we have met before."
Tennessee said, "Oh, no, I would remember."
And he said, "Well, no, I auditioned for you
several times," And Tennessee said,
"Mm. Turn around."
And he looked at his butt and went, "Oh, yes!
Now I remember you."
[ Laughter ]
But, see, you have to imagine Paul Newman was telling me
that story, right behind me. -Yeah.
-And I often thought about it
as I was cutting the documentary.
What would he think if he knew that his kids gave me,
you know, the responsibility of telling his story?
He'd be like, "That punk kid?"
-Well, I think if he saw the actual finished product,
he'd be pretty happy about it. -I hope so.
-Yeah. -I really hope so.
-Hey, man, congratulations on this.
It's just always such a delight to have you here,
and so much so that we tried to trap you on your chair.
-Yeah, I think I'll be stuck here.
I'll be here for the next person.
-We'll switch the seats.
Thanks, buddy. Great to see you.
Ethan Hawke!
"The Last Movie Stars" is streaming now on HBO Max.