Oh man, it is finally good to be here. Solo, you know, this is the way I always envisioned the podcast. And, because initially it was called Smart, and then when I added Sean and Jason, I had to add less. And that was a whole thing.
And their whole thing is like, no, less is more. And I'm like, no man, less is less. Anyway, welcome to Smart. Less.
Oh, where'd you go, Sean? Oh, so I went to go visit Will, and then I went on vacation with you. Jason. With me?
Yes. Oh no, Jason. Oh no, Jason. Believe me.
Jay, did you switch gummies, not related, but did you switch gummies recently? Yeah, this one says memory suck on it. I got a deal. By the way, speaking of memory suck, Sean, I don't know why it's not related, but I texted Jason last night or the night before I came in.
Alone on Discovery, that show about people being stuck out in the woods. No, I want to see that. Jason's been trying to get me to watch it for both of us for a year, at least. At least.
Oh, yeah, Jason, you're talking about that. Yeah, I remember that. Dude. Is it so good?
Yeah. OK. I mean, it's kind of cinematic too, right? It gets all dark and creepy, and the sounds, and the little...
What is that like, naked and afraid? But naked and afraid looks like a kind of like a different, kind of like survivor, it's kind of grab-ass-y and, you know, kind of high-jinx-y. Yeah, that was me last night, naked and afraid, playing a lot of grab-outs. Well, I locked my keys.
I locked my keys in the house. I thought everybody was going to get big. And then, but anyway, the point is, this is people, Sean, they take ten people, put him in the woods and whoever can last the longest with literally like a thing, not even a match. All I would think about is Blair Witch.
And, well, and there are people hilariously who are like, man, I'm going to give this bear a run for its money, and then the guy doesn't even make it. They're all professional survivalists too. Wait, but dude, is there getting chased by bears like somebody from the crew step in? There's no crew.
You got a bunch of girls. You got a bunch of girls. You're choking me. No, I got to watch this.
It's pretty great. It's incredible. I can't wait till you get to the two-man team. You're thinking bears, you're not, I'm not talking about...
Gay bear. I'm not talking about Scotty. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no. It's not just...
Oh, so you had bears chasing me. No, they haven't shot it inside rawhide at 21st and 8th. OK, listen, speaking of 21st and 8th, which makes me take me to New York, this is a segue beyond all segues. Guys, can I tell you something?
I am really excited because I don't know this person. We have had a passing hello, I think, a few times over the years, but he's one of those people that I've always... I'm going to say it. I've always absolutely adored his career in what he does.
Is he a bear? No, he is. No, no, no, no. He is just talented from the get.
He's been doing it a long time and he's about all of our age. But he's been doing it and we've all been admiring him for a really long time. Not only has he been making movies and then directing movies and then writing movies and writing plays and writing books and then going back and doing this and that. He's been doing it a really long time.
I can tell you respect this guy. We'll have a certain look on his face. Listen, Mr. Guest, before I meet you, just know that we'll actually not phoning this one yet.
You've got something on him. He's impressed. I've always been like, oh man, that was so good. And everything he's done, he's really good.
And he's done stuff that's been so different from where he started to where he is today. He's always mixed it up. And I think that that's the hallmark of somebody who's really curious and really talented. They keep trying to do different stuff.
I mentioned the books and the plays. And this guy, he verged on cannibalism in one of his movies. He stood on top of his desk in another one of his movies. He was trying to get to space, but he didn't have the right DNA in another one of his movies.
He's now got, he's been doing this new series over on, I guess on Disney Plus, that's right now. He's doing a film on Netflix. He's got, most importantly, a new documentary that he directed that is about Paul Newman joined the board. It's Ethan Hawke.
What? No way. Oh my God. Ethan Hawke.
Yes. Good morning. Ethan, I just watched the black phone. Is that what it's called?
That's what it's called? You guys. I just watched it. It's a great movie.
Well, thanks. Yeah. I love that movie. I want to see it.
I'm glad I got a legit intro from Will. I feel honored. I'm got a legit smile at a Sean Hayes who's usually fake in it, most of the time. Smiles come easy to hear, but that's genuine.
Wow, it's such a pleasure and honor to meet you. It really is. I mean, Ethan, we've never really met. I don't know if you remember.
We once signed Red into each other on the street in the West Village. You probably don't remember. Raha. Raha.
Raha. You remember? You did. No, we were, I was going with...
Wake, Wake. I think you were with Shurm, I know John Sherman. Yeah. I was like, Brian, Johnstown, Mascara, T-shirt.
This is like 15 years ago. And you just went, I was saying, I'm kind of Sherman and you went, hey man, nice T-shirt. I was like, thanks. I was so psyched.
And Ethan was in a tube top. A tasteful one. A tasteful one. Now, I was just talking with somebody yesterday about that Paul Newman documentary.
I cannot wait to see that. I just started that. Let's talk about how did this happen for you, Ethan, this doc? Well, it was like right before the pandemic started, I was getting out of the shower in my apartment.
The phone rang and I... Sean's got it. Sean's eyes are close. He's got it.
Yeah, open up your eyes. Talk to her. Talk to her. The phone, you know how like now when the phone rings and you don't know the person's name, you should never answer it?
Right. You know, because it's... Well, I just decided what the hell I picked it up. And it turned out it was Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward's youngest child who got my number from a friend and she's like introduced herself and said I really want you to direct a documentary about my parents.
Nice call. And I base my first thought was how the hell do I get out of this? It just sounded like so much work. And I talked to her for a while about what she had and why she thought it would be good.
And I tried to recommend some other people and she was like, no, I'm asking you. I was like, well, I was like, let me think about it for a minute. And I just couldn't figure out a way to say no. When I first arrived in New York, fall in love with acting, they were, I mean, not to be corny, but they had kind of a God-like status.
You would see them sometimes at an opening. The fact that they both had achieved at such a high level in such different ways, you know, she was kind of like the actors, actors, she was teaching acting, she was obsessed with theater and ran around theater company. And you know, he was a card-carrying, cinema, luminary. And they've been married for 50 years.
So whatever you think it can't be done, the image of Paul and Joanne would be in my brain like, wow, you could live a good life and be a decent person and make great art and have love. So I basically asked the kids if by doing this, was I going to find out anything that was really revolting? Right. You know, like, I like that.
I like that your image of them. Exactly. I love my fantasy version. And I thought, is this remotely accurate?
And they're like, yeah, it's remotely accurate. Anyway, I couldn't figure out a way to say no. So I said yes. And then almost three years went by.
Right. Wow. You know what's so crazy that you're on here. I always think this kind of stuff is nuts.
Somebody just texted me like two days ago that I'm in that. I'm in that way. Yeah, there's like a photo of me or something that they cut to the theater in Connecticut. Is that fine?
Really? Really? I'm not going to cover that. Some sort of.
Yeah. I'm now all of a sudden legal hell. Oh, hey, you should get sloyered up. Nobody likes to litigate more than Sean Hayes.
Wait, so this is amazing. So now here you are at 2022 and you've just made, you spent the last three years of your life making a documentary about Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward. And let's really, really rewind to... Nice.
By the way, nice. So now you're what? What's your first acting gig? Where you're not from New York?
I was, you feel like I was such a quintessential New Yorker to me. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Well, born in Austin, Texas, my parents split up and I traveled to my dad state in Texas.
I spent the summers in Texas and my mom... I'll read when I split up. I'll read. Oh, okay.
Yeah. I'm not going to touch that then. No, it's not. No pain.
No pain. No pain. My mother bounced around a lot from Atlanta to Connecticut to Vermont to Brooklyn to New Jersey. So I graduated high school in Jersey.
Is this a series of bank robberies or what would she run? Well, we'd have to ask her... Well, the truth is she was 18 when I was born. So she was trying to figure out who she was and kept changing jobs and changing her identity, so to speak.
I mean, not as a bank robber, not literally her identity. But you can imagine, just saying that, I'm 52 and I'm still trying to figure out who I am. You don't play a day over 35. You can't get cast when I was old.
Maybe 39. I mean, but that's a stretch. But in your intro, you were saying nice things about me about curiosity and things like that. I feel that way too.
The whole time I was making this documentary, I kept saying to the editor, I'm not a documentary filmmaker. I don't know what to do. I mean, I didn't know how to do this. And I do enjoy doing that, putting yourself in a position where you have that beginner's mind sensibility.
Yeah. Do you feel closer to it now? You know what? There's only one thing I feel close to, which is acting.
That's the only thing I know anything about. The other writing, doing other things, it's a similar exercise. It's a storytelling, right? But I don't know.
I don't feel closer to it. It feels just as mysterious as it is. You've done some directing, though, haven't you? Yeah, bunch.
Yeah. And that you feel a closer pull to acting than directing, yeah? Well, the great thing about directing is you get to choose your material and you get to hire people. So everybody that you're working with or people that you like to be around is a put when you're an actor, you often get set on these sets where you're like, why is this guy such an asshole?
And why is she? Who hired her? You know what I mean? Or you get into a situation where you really like the character or something, but the director envisioned it completely different and your imaginations are at war with each other.
Yeah. And that doesn't happen when you're directing. Yeah. I was just going to say, but it strikes me.
So again, you get to go and you're directing some, directing a documentary, some, all because probably a lot of it because of you've been so good at acting for so long. And again, this has happened a couple of times in the show, but you and Jason are similar in that you guys started young and you've continued and done great stuff and they always used to sort of the dangers of being a child actor and blah, blah, blah. But you guys kind of sidesteped a lot of that and stayed true to and have continued and everything you do keeps getting better and it's unusual. And that's not even a question that's more of a statement or an observation.
But what was that moment? Because I wanted to go back before. What was the first thing you auditioned for? I mean, do you remember?
Were you saying your mom a need to audition for this or was she like, there's a part available? Yeah, did you pursue it? Well, all right. I'll try to do it fast.
Jason, I'm sure you have your story about, you know, child acting is dangerous. A lot of the people that we came up with are dead. Yeah. And there's not a bunch of them that are still making a living.
I mean, I don't say that to brag. I'm just so proud of anyone that can somehow navigate that transition from kid to young adult to, because it's so fickle and it's not about who's good. It's just who can kind of stay kind of semi-cool to hire. I don't mean to sound like a cynic, but oftentimes it doesn't have anything to do with talent, I think.
Well, it has to do with talent. I don't think it has to do with talent. It does have to do with a little bit of your DNA, who brought you up, your ability to handle failure, your ability to grow from failure. You know, I talked to Martha Plimpton the other day on the phone and she's just growing up to be a sit show, remarkable human being.
If you don't do the stuff on the inside, you're talent-ized, you know, or it just gets beaten up. My first, my mom, I didn't have a winner sport. My mom didn't get home from work till seven, so she needed me to do, you know, I needed to be doing something in the winter. So she signed me up for an acting class at the Paul Robeson Center for Performing Arts in Princeton, New Jersey.
And I went to this class and they had a guest speaker come who did like a little improv thing. And I really, I was a giant ham as a kid. And after class, he came up to me in the parking lot. And he said, would you like to be, he was running the MacArthur Theater in Princeton.
And he said, would you like to be in a play? I was like, sure. And I was done was paid. I carried a spear and I was, you know, and George Bernard saw us, St.
Joan. But I did this play and I just couldn't believe being around all these adults who were having so much fun. They were sitting there talking about God and love and sword fighting and, you know, all this, they were having so much more fun than my parents were. I mean, they seem to be, I loved watching these people in rehearsal.
And so after the play was over, I heard through a friend of mine about some open casting calls in New York. And I just started riding the train into New York with this other kid and going on with some of the big casting calls. And one of them was explorers. How old were you when you were just let go to go on your own in a train into New York?
Thirteen. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty crazy.
Yeah. A lot of, I should say a lot of my friends, parents wouldn't let them sleep over at my house because they thought my mother was too lenient. Wait, was she was she? Oh, yeah.
I mean, I went to New York by, I went to, I went to Europe by myself and rode the Euro when I was 16, summer. Yeah. Yeah, she put a high value on independence. And I think if she'd had a different kid, I would have been in drug rehab or dead by 18.
But for some reason, it suited me. I really liked my independence. Well, you were lucky enough to find the thing that brought you joy at such a young age, which I think is key to success. Yeah.
Yeah. Again, unusual. Not a lot of people do. Yeah.
So explorers is the first, your first film, is that it? First Big Gig, yeah. Yeah. And who was it?
With River Phoenix directed by Joe Dante. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
Wow. River Phoenix. Yeah. Wow.
River Phoenix. Yeah. That's amazing. That's a great thing.
So talk about why you're not a drug addict, Robin liquor stores and doing all that stuff, even though you were brought up in a kind of permissive house, it sounds like, in a good way. You were given rope to, like you were trusted until you gave your mom a reason not to. And you just ended up being okay. Now, can you take some credit yourself that you just kind of came out with a good head on your shoulders and thank God for that?
I just think it's a dance, isn't it? I think a lot of us with the wrong parents could be in a really bad situation. What leaps in my mind when you ask me that is I think about my oldest, Maya, she's acting, she's on Stranger Things right now. Okay.
And wait, were your daughters on Stranger Things? Yeah. Yeah. Which one is she?
She plays Robin. You got to be kidding me. No, man. No idea that was your daughter.
She's fantastic. He's not kidding you for fuck sake. Just take it. This is an honest interview show.
I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, so she's she's a remarkable young woman. And I did some things right and I did some things wrong and who she is is the person who is able to differentiate right and makes sense out of her own life.
But did you give her that? Did you give her that tool? Well, the answer probably is no. I mean, she's just I kind of think she was born with it.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. She's you weren't going to stop her. I remember her at four years old being pretty sure that she was going to be an artist.
I mean, it was just the way she related to water coloring. She wore a photograph and she would change the composition of it. And if you read her poem and she liked it, she would memorize it. I mean, she just anything that touched the arts was a part of her.
And I didn't did I give her that? I mean, she's an example for you about why it's a dance is we were having a hard time. I hope she doesn't mind me saying this. And she's in her early adolescence.
You know, we need to spend some time together. And I said, I had a I had a week off. And it was actually kind of funny. I actually wrote in the calendar that movie was starting like on the 23rd of March.
And I was just wrong. It was starting to 30 years. So I thought I was supposed to leave town and all of a sudden I was like, she's I have a whole week with nothing to do. And I went to her and I said, listen, I know you're having a hard time with me.
And I'm getting on your nerves and everything. But I think the answer is let's go. I want to spend a week with you. Like, I've got nothing to do for a week.
And I talked to your mom and I'm going to take you out of school and we're just going to go be together for a week. And I said, I'll take you anywhere you want to go. And I was sure she'd say parents or something. You know, I didn't know.
First of all, what was the reaction to? We're going to take out of school. We're going to spend a week together. I don't think she liked spending a week with me, but she liked getting out of school.
Yeah. But she said she wanted to go see Graceland. Wow. She completely shocked me.
I was like, why do you want to go to Graceland? She's like, I don't know. But she'd been watching Elvis videos on YouTube, you know, and she just loved him. And so I took her to Graceland and we walked into Sun Studios and she said, Dad, look.
And she showed me her arm and all the hair on her arm was standing up. And she was like, I know, like that thing where you get shivers. Yeah. And she's like, do you feel it?
Do you feel this room? And I remember thinking, I don't know if that's this room or her. Like the room is magical, but you have to have an awareness of why it's magical for your hair. Like she understood what Sun Studios meant.
And she cared about it and was interested in it. She understood what Sam Phillips is up to. And yeah, she understood a lot of that because I talked about it. But I talk about the Dallas Cowboys too and she doesn't care about that.
You know, it's, you know, these kids are who they are and they're influenced by us. Yeah. Yeah. And now, a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show. I want to go back to when you were starting out because a question showed in my head about dry spells. Like, you know, when you're starting out as an actor, you said you did this play and it goes, that was kind of amazing and thrilling being around all those adults. And then I think in people's minds, people who are successful as you, other people think, oh, it's just snowballed and it was great and I never stopped working.
But there are always dry spells for actors, especially when you're starting out and you're younger. How do you get through those? Did you doubt yourself? How did you get through that doubt?
And we're like, I can't find a job. Maybe this isn't working. Maybe I chose the wrong thing. You know, I say this a lot.
And people think I'm kidding when I say it, which I guess is a compliment or something. But I've definitely was certain I was washed up at three different times. You know, there were three different chapters of my life where I was like, oh, wow, it's over. Like, I didn't know it was going to end.
Because when you have success young, it hijacks your brain in a kind of negative way, which is that you kind of think, oh, the world's on my side. You know, like, I got this. I was in Dead Poets Society when I was 18. Like, that's my break.
Now I'm a made man. And then all of a sudden, four years go by and you do six other movies and they're all failures. And then you want to audition for some happening movie and nobody even wants to let you audition because they've heard of you and they know they don't like you. You know, there's all these other 24 year olds that are just graduating college and now they're finding themselves.
They're coming out of the, you know, they're just graduated from this drama program. And everybody's really excited about them, right? Like, no, we don't want that kid from Dead Poets Society. I saw that terrible mystery date.
He's awful. I remember overhearing some film exec like like it was in the bathroom. It was like a president of Paramount or something. And he was like, you know, America cast its vote for Ethan Hawken.
He's not a movie star. He'll never make it. I remember going home like it was that after a premiere of some movie I did. I was like, oh my God.
And you come rushing out and go, what are these? Where's the patties? No, I hit inside there. Yeah, of course.
People talk like that all the time. They love to write people off. You know, they're either building you up or tearing you down. You're either in the process of one of them.
And I've had three different times where I really was scared and because I love it. I love doing it. And I think the joke is that it's how you handle those moments. Because we're all constantly being asked to transition.
You know, even now my beard's going gray and you know, I have to transition as an actor. I have to become a different actor. And if you try to stay the same person you worked ten years ago, you try to stick yourself in formaldehyde because people like you then. You just die.
You have to be willing to let it all go, I think. Yeah, you end up being wrong for the part if you stay in the same spot. Yeah, if you stay in the same spot. How much did you start a male apart, your theater company?
That was in the early 90s. And where is that, Ethan? It was a theater company right after, you know, it was a couple of years after Dead Poets Society. And I had dropped out of college and.
What city is it in? New York City. I took some of the money I made and just rented a theater on 42nd Street. And I had a lot of brilliant friends.
Josh Charles, Robert Sean Leonard, Jonathan Mark Sherman, Steve Zahn, a bunch of different men and women that were young artists. And we just decided to dedicate ourselves to producing young people's work. You know, the work of our own generation. And we put on these little plays.
It was a real sensation. And I can tell you as an actor who moved to New York in 1990 from Toronto. And I didn't know a single person. It was very intimidating because you guys had that.
I knew some of the people naked angels. You guys were kind of the answer to naked angels. You were like the next generation. You know, all these great guys and doing all this amazing stuff.
But I was thinking that must have given you quite a bit of, I was going to say respite, but at least something that you could get out to sort of take your mind away from all the politics and the bullshit about being a movie star and actually just focus on doing your thing. Is there any truth to that? You know, Jason, I wonder what you would say. We were talking about surviving being a young actor.
What actually popped through my head is my friends. I had really good friends. Yeah, Josh is a good choice for that. Is this such a good dude?
Hello to Josh. He's such a good... But when you have good friends who say to you, you sound really stuck up. You know, you've been hanging out with your agent too long.
You sound like you're on an interview. And you have friends that you admire the way that they think about art or the way that they... I think that your friends can save your life. And if you don't have the right friends, I know like, sometimes I just feel so lucky that about the friends that I made, that they're the ones who kept me alive and kept me thinking.
I am into that and also crossing paths with people that are behaving in a way that you recognize as a way that you don't want to be. That's also really important. Yeah, actually, you know what? I'm glad you said that, Jason.
You sound really stuck up. Oh. Will we still rolling? Let me go.
No, but you know, Ethan, I was thinking one of your friends that I knew... I know a lot of those guys from way back in the day, but one of the guys was Josh Hamilton. I remember when he did... Because I was living with...
Missa Yeager was my girlfriend at the time when they did his new youth with Kenny and again. And with Ruffalo. And Josh was so brilliant in that man. He was so fucking good.
It just made me think of 42nd Street. Yeah, exactly. I did. Missy did a play with me at Malapart.
Yes. That's right. You know, I always... I ask a bunch of people who come on this show who are in the theater if you have any great, like, tragic, but funny theater stories that happen to you, like, One Night.
I'll have one. I don't think I've shared with you guys. One Night just did this play. It's called Good Night Oscar in Chicago.
Hopefully it's going to New York. And... We're definitely inserting applause there by the way. Yeah.
That'll be it. And in the middle of the... In the middle of the... towards the end of the play, I have to play the piano every night.
It's part of the story. And in the front row, there's two girls that were bombed, wasted, out of their mind drunk. And while I'm playing, it's a really intimate, like, kind of moment in the play. And these girls, every time I just, like, I would play, like, every 10 seconds they'd go...
Right on! Way to go! Whoa! Look at that!
And it was like, the rest of the audience was completely silent. And the guys would come down, and they'd try to get on the stage. It was insanity. You were doing this play in a theater there in Chicago?
Yes, I was. Yes. They were in the front row. Bomb, wait.
It was so... I have a... It's not a good theater story, man. I'm trying to...
I'll go with the front row. I did a play called Hurley Burley with Josh Hamilton, Bobby Kinavalli, Parker Posey. Oh, Bobby Kinavalli. A lot of great people.
But the director had this idea that my character was kind of a drug addict and there'd be a well-type that I should be on the stage passed out as the audience enters. Right, so at the... When the door is opened, I would have to be... And I had to be in my underwear.
I was supposed to be, like, hanging off my butt. And I was just in my underwear, completely collapsed on a living room couch, right? It's just supposed to be bombed. And people would come and sit down, and they would see me.
And they would like to be looking at their television. They would just talk about me. Like I wasn't there. Because the first couple of rows I could just hear.
You know, he's a really terrible person. I read this article in People Magazine where he said, stupid came. He's really a jerk. He's a real misogynist.
And I'm like, and I'm having a listen. And I can't, like, I want to lift up my head and say, I'm right here. That hurts my feelings. That's not true.
Exactly. And it would be so painful. Dude, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to hijack for one minute interrupting him, which is what I opened up with.
I was just in town here getting a coffee with my middle son and my partner, my girl. I'm having a coffee with her, my friend, my friend. I'm having a coffee with her. She's standing, I'm going to say six feet from me.
And she's looking at me, but talking to her son, she goes, I don't know. I can't really remember his name. But that's him. And I'm sitting, having, and I'm stuck on a bench and she's six feet.
And I just wanted to be like, hey, you know, I'm alive. I'm breathing right here. Public property. Anyway, so you're on the, by the way, who directed that version of Hurley-Berley?
Scott Elliot. Of course. Yeah. Yeah.
And that's so funny. I had another time where my friend died on stage with me. How about that? What do you mean, like literally?
I'm a great Canadian actor, Richard Easton. We had a scene in Tom Stoppard's Ghost of Utopia where he had to scream at me. You know, I will not lend you any more money. He had this huge thing where his final line was, and that's my last word.
No way. And as he said, his tongue fell out of his mouth the way like a brick would fall out. Like something was so wrong. What?
And then he hit the ground like, you know, I mean, face first. Face first. And I was so frozen. I could, I'm staring.
I knew literally just when the audience thought that that that was part of the play, right? I kind of see my final word. And he crumbs. And I'm standing there and I don't know what I'm looking at the audience and they're all laughing.
And I just, my brain just went to the dark side. I was like, he's dead. He's that guy. That guy is dead.
My friend, Richard is dead. And I don't know what to do. And Martha Plimpton was in the wings and she came out and she was so ballsy. She came out.
She was just like, is there a doctor in the house? Is there a doctor in the house? And then some dude in the third row is like, I'm a doctor and the rest of the audience is still laughing. But I'm here.
No, he was, and then the prop guy came out and they did what he called. CPR. And so he was dead for seven minutes and they revived him on center stage. No way.
No way. No way. No way. No way.
No way. No way. No way. No way.
No way. No way. The audience had been evacuated. There was no applause for life.
The way. Yeah. I'm glad we were laughing because it has a good outcome. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. He survived and he actually returned to the show about two months later. Wow.
Wow. Ethan, I've got a question for you. Something that I would assume is unique to young young actors that become adults. And so you start training yourself to be convincing as another person at a time when you're still trying to figure out who you are or who you're going to become, right, as a child.
You know, we don't really figure out who we're going to be like, well, what 16, 17, whatever the hell it is. So you're trying on all these different roles and really trying to be believable. And so that's causing you to really try to find that place inside of you. That's kind of like that character.
It started to develop for me sort of like a manageable form of schizophrenia, right? Like a monetizable version of schizophrenia. But it sort of confused my path to identity and who I really was when I wake up in the morning or go to bed at night. Did you ever deal with any of that starting as young as I did, training yourself to be somebody other than who you were organically becoming?
Absolutely. I mean, you know what I mean? I had that. I mean, for example, when I was doing Dead Poets Society, my character is extremely shy, right?
He's extremely... And so you're accessing the part of yourself that is really shy, right? Well, what am I like when I'm really shy? And you start...
It's almost like a... Oh, it sounds really corny to say, but you know you hear those Buddhist guys say, just if you just make yourself smile for half an hour, you actually are in a good mood and it does work. It's... It's like a brain.
Well, you can hardwire your brain for a lot of different things. And if you're doing a daily meditation on why a human being might hate themselves and not feel like what their words are worth anything and you're accessing that part of yourself, yes, you know you're more than that, but it's kind of like you're wiring your brain to highlight that part of you. And I really struggled with that. When that movie was over and this has been an ongoing theme of my life of trying, I think actors spend a lot of time inviting, you know, how to get into character, right?
You hear people say that all the time and see you spend all this energy inviting depression, your madness, it's most confusing with the darker emotions, right? You invite them in, but then what are you supposed to do with them once you've invited them into your psyche to play? Right. And I found that extremely difficult.
And if you're talented, you have an aptitude for this. And it's actually an aptitude for insanity, you know? Yeah, for sure. And I think the big lesson for young actors is if you're going to really think about character, you have to start to think about your own character.
Well, it's, you know, it's so interesting because I'm really I'm obsessed with the Black phone. I thought it was such a great movie and I'll watch it again. Like it's one of those movies I'll watch again and again. Where you you actually I didn't know anything about it.
And as I'm watching the movie, you're playing this crazy kidnapping silence of the lambs kind of guy. And I didn't think you I didn't think the character would be as dark as it is. I'm going to you actually kill children. Yeah.
Like you killed him. And I was like, how in the world do you find this person? Like how in the world did you find out how to play that guy? Because it was scary as shit.
Maybe you don't want to know, Sean. Okay, maybe you just asked the wrong question guy. Maybe you just fucked up the world. Good.
And she drop your mic and pack your shit, Sean. Start running around. Where do you live? I want to come over.
No, no, no, no. It was really scary. No, you know, I don't really know how to answer that question except that I feel as I get older, that acting at its best is a kind of shamanistic process and that might sound pretentious or whatever. But it is you're the dude like, you're sitting around the campfire, you like get up and you tell a story and you do a dance and you're kind of inviting these other spirits to be a part of the story in some way.
It's you are a shaman that is kind of part of the job and learning to invite different emotions in and letting them flow in and out makes a good storyteller. You have to know who you are. And I'm lucky. What I did on that job, for example, is I just every day I get home from work, I would just go on and walk with my kids.
Because the dad gene in me is way more powerful than the actor gene in me. You know, like, I know who I am in relationship to them very well. I'm their father. That's all that matters.
And are we eating? Are we learning to tell the truth? Are we taking care of one another? It's really simple, but now things, it's kind of like a grounding wire for me.
But I don't really know how to answer it. You know what's funny, it occurs to me, you touched on it, your character, that Boats Society was very sort of shy. And then you said earlier when you first started taking, I think, part of the theatre, when you were a kid, in Princeton, that you were actually quite a ham and whatever. And I've always thought of you, I don't know you again, but I've always thought of you as kind of a shy guy and I wonder if it's because of that impression.
I just went around, all three of you guys, I was thinking like Sean, the character that you first sort of introduced you to the world was your character on Will and Grace, who was very kind of crazy and all over the place. And Jason, you were kind of a wise-ass. I knew you from, it's your move before we became friends when you did that. And you were like this, wise-ass.
And that's maybe how you're introduced to the world is that thing. And a lot of people knew me just from the first thing they knew me from, was probably the rest of the bell, where I played this insane magician who was over the top. Illusionist. Thank you.
And you know, like that you get kind of, and I was thinking you get tight cast not just for work for life. Well, I would say that, you know, the thing about being an actor that nobody tells you is it robs you of the ability to make a first impression anymore. Yeah. And you meet people and they have a first impression.
And for some people, I don't, there was a whole group of people when I was younger that hated me because they hated the guy from reality, right? You know, they think, Troy's a jerk. I don't like you. You think you're so cool, you know?
And you're like, man, I'm like, yeah, play the character. You guys, we relax. Like I didn't steal Winona from Ben Stiller. Like, you know what's me mad at me.
Dude, that's funny. But Will Ferrell used to do that. If you go with Will people, it'd be like, Hank, Hank, and they attack him and you end up being security for Will because people are like, we're going to party and drink and run down the street naked now, right? He's like, no, man, I've got fucking four kids.
Like, what are you doing? Yeah. And we will be right back. And now back to the show.
Hey, Ethan, talk about your, talk about your relationship with, with, with fame and success. I put in quotes because, you know, in my opinion, you've hit the gold medal with success as far as longevity goes like that. To me, that's the, that's the tough thing to do. Like, you know, all you need nowadays is just a sex tape to get your head above the titles and to get a lot of money.
So that's, you know, to get fame and money, it's, it's so, yeah. Anything will, yeah. Just me and just some shots of me. I'm just talking about my sister real quick.
So you strike me as somebody who is completely fulfilled with, with what you do, the level that you do it. You've never seen to be a person that has had a thirst for fame, fortune, recognition, celebrity. It seems that you've always been on a quest to be an actor that's working and also an actor that's respected. And not that that is, you know, a contrived agenda, but it is just a great result of the choices that you make.
Is that something that you give a lot of thought to or is it just sort of, well, it just kind of get the roles that I get and the perception is what it is. It is not something of my making. It's not, it's not a recipe that I've got my eye on and not something that you're proactive at. Well, our life is how we spend it.
And so I think I could easily say, yeah, it's no big deal, but no, I put a lot of thought. I'll give you an example. When you were saying that, did you guys see the new Elvis movie? No, yeah.
Well, it's funny because Elvis is interesting to me because you know how do when Tarantino makes biopix he changes the ending, you know, like, yeah, yeah, well, I'd like to do an Elvis movie that ends right when the current, you know, when Sun Studios is exploding and Elvis is breaking, the Colonel signs him up. They leave Sun Studios. He signs the biggest contract in music history with RCA. And I would make a strong case to be made that he died that day, you know, that, that, that when the object of your life becomes about succeeding versus what you are succeeding about, because if his goal in life was to make beautiful music, there is no doubt that he should have stayed with Sam Phillips.
He loved African American music. He loved what Sam Phillips was doing there. All his success came from singing black music and he should have stayed there and helped other musicians. And it's easy.