The legend who gave Ethan Hawke his first taste of real acting: “It was an amazing experience”
Ethan Hawke has worked with some of the finest names in the history of acting. In Training Day, he starred alongside Denzel Washington in the movie that finally nabbed him Best Actor at the Academy Awards. Recently, in Pedro Almodóvar’s Strange Way of Life, he formed a formidable partnership with Pedro Pascal. And let’s not forget his scintillating on-screen chemistry with Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy.
The first time cinemagoers became aware of Hawke in a big way was as part of the 1989 film Dead Poets Society. He plays Todd Anderson, a young man beginning life at an all-boys prep school. He and his fellow students become enraptured with their English teacher John Keating (Robin Williams), who, through the power of poetry, teaches them valuable lessons about life and helps them all to form strong emotional bonds.
In a conversation with Sunday Today (transcribed by People), Hawke revealed that the movie still had a lingering effect on him, calling it “a tattoo on his heart.” He also admitted that it was Williams who gave his 19-year-old self an insight into the profession that would dominate his life. “He gave me the first taste of what acting could be,” he said. “When it goes really well, you disappear, and you’re in service of a larger story.”
Hawke recalled one scene in particular where Keating was trying to help his character come out of his shell. “He asked me to sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world,” said the actor of his co-star. “It was an amazing experience because the deeper into that scene I got, by the time the day was over I couldn’t remember what had happened. It was the first taste of how positive and how beautiful performance could be. It’s part of a collective imagination when something goes right like that it has reverberations that last a long time.”
Not only is Dead Poets Society still one of Hawke’s most profitable film roles, it remains one of his most acclaimed. The young star got great reviews for his performance as the shy schoolboy, and the movie itself went on to dominate at the Oscars, picking up nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor for Williams. It remains a firm favourite, in particular the scene where Keating’s students stand up on their desks and salute him with cries of “O’ Captain! My Captain!” from the Walt Whitman poem of the same name.
The pair didn’t always see eye-to-eye though, as Hawke revealed when receiving an award at a Czech film festival in 2021. “I thought Robin hated me,” he revealed (via Variety). “He had a habit of making a ton of jokes on set. At 18, I found that incredibly irritating. He wouldn’t stop, and I wouldn’t laugh at anything he did.” In the end though, the two mended fences. Williams was instrumental in getting Hawke his representation, as when his new agent first called him, they apparently said, “Robin Williams says you are going to do really well.”
Being a part of such an acclaimed movie at such a young age undoubtedly shaped Hawke’s career going forward. Whilst you’d never ever compare the two, him getting to work alongside Williams clearly left an impact on him; something else we can add to the long list of things the departed funnyman did for the world.
