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Ethan Hawke (2025) - Fate, Acting and Presence · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap, and before we get going, please
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  follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
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  our latest episodes in your feed so that we're doing a deep dive
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  into an actor's career. But this isn't, you know, just
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  about Hollywood gossip. Not at.
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  All this is really an investigation into creative
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  integrity. How do you handle something as
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  as toxic? As celebrity right and being
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  hard won wisdom about what success actually cost you.
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  We've got some incredible sources, really candid
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  reflections on acting on failure and.
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  The absolute need for mentorship.
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  And our mission here is to take that journey and, you know,
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  translate it into something actual for you, no matter what
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  your job is. We're not just telling a story.
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  We're. Pulling out the principles.
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  Exactly. We're trying to figure out how
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  this actors learned to filter all that noise, the public
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  opinion, they're just tremendous.
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  Well, the heat. The heat is not running out.
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  OK, so let's get into it the whole beginning, which is
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  actually surprisingly normal. Yeah, he wasn't some kid who was
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  born for the stage. No, he started acting in 12
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  because he's winter sport and find him up for a drama class.
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  It's. Almost completely by accident,
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  but he got hooked and fast. His professional gig was what, a
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  one line? Part A tiny one line part.
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  He was a knight with a sword in George Printer and Charlie Saint
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  Joan. But the real thing, the actual
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  transformation, it wasn't the applause.
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  No, it was what was happening backstage.
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  Right he was. Fascinated by the adults, the
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  real working actors in rehearsal, they were actually
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  enjoying themselves having these deep philosophical debates.
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  He mentions them arguing about whether God existed just, you
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  know, in the wings and. For him, there was such a huge
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  contrast to his parents. He figured out what.
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  Success meant him. He worked, should be joyful.
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  He should be engaging with that idea.
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  He got tested almost immediately.
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  Oh yeah, age 14/19/84. He had thrown into the deep end
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  apart in the $30 million Joe Dante movie, Co starring in
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  Louisville Phoenix. He called it being sucked out of
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  his intense. His mom couldn't go, so his
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  guardian was his grandmother. A grandmother who had always
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  wanted to be a movie star for herself.
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  You can just picture the weight of that.
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  You know that unfulfilled ambition on this kid.
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  He even tells the story about driving to the Paramount Gates
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  and she's just sitting there smoking a cigarette, basically
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  living her dream through him. It's just so unstable.
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  Paid off in a big way because that movie, that huge first
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  shot, it was a complete flop. A big Turkey is what he called
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  it, A quick and salty death to the dream.
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  The premiere story is just. Brutal.
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  Oh, it's awful. He and River Phoenix, they go
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  unrecognized that they're in the back.
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  He just he went back to. High school.
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  He figured the dream was already done.
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  He's just trying to like putting your hand in a flame.
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  But. That failure, that public,
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  painful failure, ended up being as great as weapon get.
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  To the whole point, because he was, in his voice, a fully
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  braced for failure. One deadpot society became this
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  massive global hit a few years later.
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  It didn't go to his head. He couldn't.
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  He already learned the lesson most people spending their lives
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  trying to figure out, right? Don't anchor yourself to the
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  result. Anchor yourself to the process,
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  to the joy of the work itself. Really disaster.
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  It was the palace. It was the armor he needed.
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  And. He really needed it because by
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  the time he edition for DPS he was.
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  Miserable in college and his backup plan was what to join the
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  Merchant Marines? Yeah, like Jack London, he was
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  looking for escape, for a real life, not for fame.
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  So getting that part, it was a huge and.
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  The. Environment on that film, it
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  just reinforced everything the director he finded his making
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  art. He will realize just how poised
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  his fame can be when you're young.
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  He has his analogy for this just so visceral, the.
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  Concrete analogy the. Concrete analogy, he says.
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  Fame completely impedes your development if the ingredients
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  are wrong. When that concrete is setting,
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  the foundation is and this is his word walked forever.
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  It's a profound instinct. If anyone really, really huge
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  success can just, it can healthify bad habits.
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  It stops you from being able to hear criticism.
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  He calls it a tiny drop of mercury in your brain, so.
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  How did he survive it? He says it was not that he got
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  famous in slow. Incumbents.
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  He wasn't an overnight global star.
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  He was just that kid from Dead Poet Society.
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  Which let him build up a resistance to the poison bit by
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  bit. It wasn't just luck though, it
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  was also having these. Really.
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  Powerful external anchors he talks a lot about.
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  His dad. His dad provided the ballot.
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  He valued integrity over everything, and he was naturally
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  suspicious of people who want too much attention.
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  That's the perfect safe code against the Hollywood machine,
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  and it allowed him to actually listen to the wisdom from older
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  men to what he worked with. Like Christmas, that story is
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  just fantastic. Oh it's brilliant.
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  This is first time drinking a movie and he's got this
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  elaborate shot planned for Chris Anderson's character.
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  He's an alcoholic. Right, the guy get the bottle a
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  little bit, he delivered and the plan is for him to walk in, turn
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  on the light, try on a hat, look in the mirror, all this stuff
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  all. Before opening the bottle and
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  Christopher just stops him. He just looks at differences.
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  Are you an alcoholic? And when he gets his no, he's
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  always and just gently points out the truth.
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  An alcoholic who just got a fresh bottle is not going to
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  miss. He's going to.
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  Open the bottle and drink. Period.
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  Bud's an alcoholic and he's going to get his bottle.
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  He's going to open it. It's so simple but so profound.
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  It cuts right through all the artistic pretension to.
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  The reality of the character and that's.
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  Really. Craft of acting it's not.
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  Just an actor disappearing. A great film becomes a
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  collective, imaginative experience.
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  The audience disappears too. When you watch The Godfather,
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  you're not thinking about Al Pacino.
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  You're thinking about Michael Corleone.
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  He non judgmental in your prep.
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  Acting for him is an invitation to expand who you are to ask why
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  did he make it without judging the.
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  Character which leaned to his. Best acting teacher ever.
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  A wolf. A wolf.
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  On the set of White Fang, because a wolf knows instantly
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  if you're not present, if you're self-conscious or thinking about
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  the camera, it's gone. It won't engage the.
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  Wolf is the ultimate presence detector.
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  You have to be there, he says. Denzel is just so commanding,
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  always listening, talking, asking, thinking completely in a
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  moment. Which is how you get those
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  legendary things like King Kong ain't got shit on me monologue.
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  We all think that was just, you know, a lightning bolt of
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  improvisation. That's.
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  The thing it was improvised, but it was the result of months.
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  It was Denzel pulling from lines and ideas that have been cut
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  from the script earlier. He was magic because he was so
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  prepared. The.
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  Incorporation manifesting in the moment.
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  Exactly. And to do that consistently, you
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  have to have a beginner's mind. The Zen idea of tabula Rosa.
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  The blank slate. A director taught him that
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  lesson when he was 21. He started listing his resume
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  and the director just cut him off and said, I need you to say
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  I don't know. If you can say I don't know.
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  I can teach you. It's better tripping.
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  Away you go. And that's why he's always
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  trying new things, like getting graphic novels.
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  The. Scrutiny, he talks about reading
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  the devil's red. Bad defense It's.
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  A trap anyone who breeds things can fall into.
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  But he's developed this, this medical defense against the
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  online hate. I think it's so useful for
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  everyone. He just tells himself these are
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  winners. People posting that kind of we
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  all, they're really talking about their own frustrations,
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  not you. It's deflection.
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  But the fear is still there. He admits his his fear is that
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  the bad refusal from being able to do the work he loves, He says
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  I know it's. Gradual.
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  That never goes away. He still gets physically sick
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  with nerves before a big roll. The difference is how he handles
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  it now. He doesn't pretend he isn't
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  nervous, he just accepts it and gets to work.
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  Which is perfectly captured by. What Mike Tyson, the trainer
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  Customado, used to say. So.
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  For you, the listener, the goal isn't to get to some point where
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  you've made it and you feel No Fear.
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  That's a myth, and you probably wouldn't want it anyway.
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  So. When you look at the whole from
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  an accidental St. working at Stenzel, the theme is just so
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  queer. True excellence comes from that
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  internally for their integrity. And that early bit of failure
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  gave him the validity needed to navigate everything that came
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  after and completely redefined it.
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  Yeah, he says. What he's chasing now isn't
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  money. From it's a feeling he calls
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  grace, that perfect moment of creation where his own ego just
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  disappears. When my life is gone, that's the
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  real chase. That's what has sustained him.
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  The. Difference between a long career
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  and just being a clash in the pan Which?
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  Brings us to our final thought for you.
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  Is your goal of reaching that level of freedom and happiness?
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  Or are you just chasing numbers, knowing that beyond that simple
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  threshold of company, more wealth doesn't actually lead to
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  more laughter or more fulfillment?
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  Something to think about.