-Our first guest tonight
is an Academy and Tony Award-nominated actor
you know from films such as "Boyhood" and "Training Day."
He is the co-creator, executive producer, and star
of Showtime's limited series "The Good Lord Bird,"
which airs Sundays at 10:00 P.M. Let's take a look.
-What is it that you want in this direct moment?
-The freedom of every Negro in this building.
Safe passage for all of my men across the B&O Bridge,
and then I will surrender myself directly to you.
-Mr. Brown, you are in no position to negotiate.
-Give me a hundred yards' head start.
-Please welcome back to the show and the studio,
Ethan Hawke, everybody!
♪♪ -[ Hums along ]
-I can't believe it!
-Look at all the people. -Right along this way, sir.
-Look -- Wow! -Look at it.
-It's amazing! No, no, no, it's too much!
It's too much. Stop applauding.
Stop applauding. -We got like nine for you.
-Yeah. -How are you?
Nine's a big number. -Is this the safe distance?
-This is a safe distance. -This is our imaginary friend.
-Hey, I want to talk about the show.
One thing I want to say before we get too far away
from the clip, I was watching
the season finale, which is fantastic,
the series finale.
The makeup is so good.
You are so convincingly dirty in this whole last episode.
Sometimes that is a very hard thing to achieve,
and your makeup people did a fantastic job.
-Well, his name is David Atherton,
and he's a makeup artist I've worked with before.
A lot of -- you know, directors are like quarterbacks.
I mean, actors are like quarterbacks.
We get so much credit for things that are not our doing.
-Yes.
-And this guy happens to study --
He did a college thesis on character development.
And we had so much fun getting to work in a canvas this big,
a seven-hour movie,
and to play an iconic figure like John Brown.
What does he look like? Why does he grow his beard?
How does the beard look? What does the beard tell you?
What does it communicate? You know?
And he was in a gunfight for a slew of days
and he needed to be dirty. -Yeah.
And it's just a really -- i think sometimes you can tell
when somebody like just throws the dirt on.
-No, this guy didn't do that. He really obsesses over it.
And I obsess over it too, so we had a lot of fun.
I'm so glad you brought that up because I never get to give him
the props that he deserves.
I texted him just today. It's our performance.
-Yeah. -It's not just mine.
-It is. And it's a terrific performance.
before we talk about that, you know, this is --
I feel like these last nine months,
people look for silver linings.
One of my silver linings is you and I figured out,
we knew each other from shows like this,
that we were pandemic neighbors,
and I got to know you and your family...
-It's amazing.
-And it was one of the silver linings.
-I even snuck into your closet. -You snuck into my closet.
We actually have a clip. You were the only guest
who appeared in the attic show, and not really appear.
But let's take a look at Ethan's work here.
It's not like there's magic door behind me that will
send me a guest if I say their name three times.
Ethan Hawke, Ethan Hawke, Ethan Hawke. Right?
I mean, that would be stupid.
But also, I mean, how cool would that be?
[ Laughter ]
Do you remember the thing that was notable about that day?
-That we got in trouble? -We got in trouble.
We immediately -- the network was like,
"You gotta let us know if Ethan Hawke's gonna be there."
-Yeah. -But it was also like
a thousand degrees in the attic.
-It was so hot!
And you had to keep redoing the take
and I had to be trapped in that closet, like,
"Seth, get your lines right, dude.
I cannot stay here any longer."
-I got a little nervous when you're -- you know.
-When I was trapped in the darkness, you got nervous?
-I didn't get nervous about you.
I got nervous about -- I feel like when I have to act
with someone of your caliber... -Oh, really?
-...I get a little, you know, so I think I was --
-I feel that way on the show. You know, this is not my world,
and I think all of us, when we are out of our element,
you have to -- you know, it knocks you off balance.
-Are you less nervous or more nervous with no audience?
-You know, I'm asking myself,
why am I feeling so nervous right this second?
And I think it's because there's nobody here.
-Yeah, there's no cushion to anything.
-Yeah, you don't get a laugh. It's very --
It makes me feel like something's wrong
or like we're rehearsing, you know?
-Oh, yeah, we are gonna do this for an audience in a month.
-We'll do it for real later. Okay, cool. All right.
Then I think this is going great.
-This was -- we talked a lot this summer about
how you'd put so much work into this.
You and your wife Ryan were producers of this as well.
And this is a book by James McBride.
And, obviously, one of the things you have to do
when you adapt a work of this magnitude
is get the trust of the author. -Of the author, yeah.
How did that go down, and was he happy with the outcome?
-Well, he would have to speak to that himself.
I can tell you that if I had to pinpoint the greatest
professional moment of my life,
it was when James saw the season finale and called me.
You know, we had been working on it.
He is an executive producer on it too.
I met him at a cafe in Brooklyn.
He is a man of immense personal integrity.
He's hysterically funny, and he's kind,
and he's the kind of artist you walk away from
and you think, "Oh, that's what an artist
is supposed to be like."
I mean, he just has real grace.
And my wife and I left that meeting going,
I want to do anything that puts me more in contact
with people like that, right?
But he trusted us with this material.
And that was a heavy responsibility.
So to get -- you know, we sent him the final cut of the thing
and he called me up, and he just -- he couldn't believe it.
We were going to make John Brown famous!
You know, and he was so happy.
And when he was happy, you know, when I kind of
honored that handshake to somebody
I admire as much as him, it meant a lot to me.
-We're gonna be right back to talk to you more.
Because one of the things I want to talk about
is how little we all know about John Brown
and how James McBride's approach to that...
-Okay. -...sent this series
in the direction it went.
We'll be right back with more. -Can people pretend to applaud?
-Yeah, yeah. -Yeah!
-We'll be right back with more Ethan Hawke.
-Great job, Seth!