In short
Ethan Hawke discusses how reading shapes intelligence, creativity, and mental health, and recommends four favorite books: Dave Eggers’ The Eyes and the Impossible, Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family (illustrated by Maurice Sendak), and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. He also connects these books to intuition, empathy, nature, and acting.
Guest backgrounds
Ethan Hawke is an actor and writer who grew up with a mother obsessed with reading (Fort Worth, Texas) and credits her with requiring proof of reading for movies. He has done audio narration for major works and has a long-running bookstore-themed TV project (“The Lowdown,” where he plays a bookstore owner).
Key claims
Reading “opens doors” in the brain; walking plus reading helps depression; intuition guides major life choices; literature uniquely accesses private inner experience (including sexuality and spirituality) without turning it into spectacle.
Notable examples
He describes audio-casting animal voices for The Eyes and the Impossible; recalls reading The Outsiders with his kids; credits Housekeeping with restoring his desire to be an actor; and says Lonesome Dove made him cry in public.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOEthan Hawke Introduction
0:34 to 1:11
Introduction of Ethan Hawke and the focus on his favorite books.
“Back to school season can be tough on parents, but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be.”
Ethan's Reading Journey
1:11 to 2:32
Ethan discusses his mother's influence on his reading habits and the importance of literature.
“We're very excited to have Ethan here for an episode of One Night Stand.”
Books as Mental Remedies
2:32 to 4:25
Ethan reflects on reading as a remedy for depression and the importance of instilling a love for books in children.
“I think part of why I wanted to be here tonight is because I love this store and because I've been watching my own reading diminish.”
Favorite Book: The Eyes in the Impossible
4:25 to 5:00
Ethan shares his thoughts on the book 'The Eyes in the Impossible' by Dave Eggers.
Exploring Themes in Literature
5:00 to 11:58
Ethan discusses themes in literature and the importance of voice in storytelling, citing various examples.
“all right well the eyes in the impossible here I'm going to pick it up without dropping my glasses is by Dave Eggers.”
Exploring Profound Themes Humorously
14:00 to 15:14
Discover how a book humorously addresses profound themes of life and nature.
“You know, it's not like he's taking on profound themes without trying to be profound.”
Exploring Profound Themes Humorously
15:37 to 16:02
Discover how a book humorously addresses profound themes of life and nature.
“but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be.”
The Power of Intuition
16:05 to 21:20
Ethan discusses the significance of intuition in life and decision-making.
“I mean, most of all the trouble that I've put myself through in my life has come from not listening to that voice or trying to override that voice.”
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
21:20 to 22:54
Ethan shares his admiration for Marilynne Robinson and her impactful writing.
“There's a bookstore, not as big as this one, but it's another magic bookstore in Paris called Shakespeare and Company.”
The Emotional Impact of Literature
22:54 to 28:00
Explore how literature touches on deep human experiences and emotions.
“I picked books for tonight that have been recently in the last 18 months, two years or something had a big impact on me, as any possible big impact on me.”
Show all 21 chapters
The Complexity of Sibling Relationships
28:00 to 29:10
Explore the deep emotional landscape of sibling love and separation.
“I mean, it's the one thing I do remember is these sisters are so close.”
The Impact of Literature on Personal Identity
29:10 to 31:10
Discuss how books shape our identities and perceptions of self.
“I didn't read female writers as a young man.”
Imagination and Empathy in Storytelling
31:10 to 33:40
Understand the role of imagination in fostering empathy through literature.
“I can't tell the difference what I learned from my senses and what I learned from my imagination.”
The Leap of Faith in Pursuing Dreams
33:40 to 36:03
Examine the confidence needed to pursue dreams against societal expectations.
“stepped away from college to go and do Dead Poets Society, right?”
The Animal Family: A Magical Story
36:03 to 42:00
Delve into the enchanting tale of the Animal Family and its themes of love and acceptance.
“And I took about half of it and I made a short film with the money.”
The Magic of Family Reading
42:00 to 45:18
Ethan reflects on the joy of reading with his family and the power of literature.
“But then I've had kind of two litters, you call them, my first two kids and then my second two kids.”
Embracing Nature and Isolation
45:18 to 48:51
Ethan shares his love for nature and the introspection it brings.
“One thing I've noticed through your books, there's a lot of isolation in them.”
Discovering Lonesome Dove
48:51 to 54:26
Ethan discusses his newfound appreciation for Larry McMurtry's 'Lonesome Dove'.
“All the great writers have the natural world.”
Discovering Lonesome Dove
55:02 to 55:31
Ethan discusses his newfound appreciation for Larry McMurtry's 'Lonesome Dove'.
“But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites.”
Exploring Anti-Western Literature
56:01 to 1:00:14
Learn about the themes and character portrayals in an anti-Western book.
“I finished that the experience was over yeah it shook me to my core and it's not it's I didn't weep because the world sucks it's not that kind of book where it makes you feel like the world.”
Adapting Literature to Film
1:00:14 to 1:00:55
Discuss the upcoming adaptation of the book and personal reflections on casting.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Ugh, I hate Mondays. King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite? Uh, Taylor Hanson? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm. Bites, bit-a-ba-da-ba.
0:08Ethan Hawke:Hey, let's get back to work, please. But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. Taylor Hanson? Nice. Try one. Mmm. Bites, bit-a-ba-da-ba-do. King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. Don't you love them? There's nothing like it. Sweet swirling is all good. This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents, but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them.
0:51Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.
0:58Ethan Hawke:I had made$28 ,000 on Dead Poets Society or something. I thought I was the richest person in the world. I was like, shit, I'm loaded. Hi, everyone. Thank you all for coming. We're very excited to have Ethan here for an episode of One Night Stand. We're going to talk about four of his favorite books, which I've been reading the last few weeks and which are brilliant. Ethan, have you always been a big reader? My mother is one of those people who is obsessed with reading. And she has a constant refrain that she would say is that if you want to be intelligent, it's easy. You just have to read. And the more you read, the more intelligent you are.
1:39Ethan Hawke:And she grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. And even she got a subscription to The New Yorker magazine when she was like 15. She was probably the only one in Fort Worth. But she absolutely has a passion for it and instilled to me I couldn't go to the movies on Friday if I hadn't read a book that was not on the curriculum. And I would have to prove that I read it. And it's one of those things I found so irritating as a young person. And now I'm so grateful. Yeah. You know, but I really do. I have to say to all the parents out there, it really does matter if you it opens up so many doors in your brain.
2:24Ethan Hawke:Yeah. And there's so you'll never get to all the good books. And so I'm really grateful. It has been hard. I think part of why I wanted to be here tonight is because I love this store and because I've been watching my own reading diminish. And so, and I hear about it's really happening everywhere. And, and I hate the fact that it's happening in me too. And I've been trying, I'm doing the show right now, the lowdown where I play a bookstore owner. So to all the people who work here at the strand I feel you um and um but it's it's been bringing back in me a desire to have books be really a part of my life and my life is so much richer I really do feel there's a few a few really great home cure remedies for depression and walking and reading if I walk a lot and I'm reading I don't get that blue yes I completely agree it does something to your nervous system yeah it does for me for sure I completely agree do you try and use those rules as a parent now yourself it's so hard oh it's hard because they because you want your kids to like you and I've been I mean I try to pick the best books you know like Catcher in the Rye you know just sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't And I had to bring my kids to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
3:55Ethan Hawke:They had to go to school because shooting the show takes – it's not like a movie where you're in and out in six weeks. I was there for six months. And so – and it was so much fun. We all listened to The Outsiders on the way down. And that – it was like when we arrived in Tulsa, the kids were like, all right. You know, where's Dally? Where's Ponyboy? So I don't know. I try to instill the passion for them, but it kind of has to take off. I gave my 18-year-old Somerset Malm's The Razor's Edge. Oh, I love that book. This summer, and when it takes off, when reading becomes not work for a young person, and you see them looking at their own life with new eyes and seeing characters in their life, like characters from a novel and in I I watched her burn through that book and you know with tears in her eyes it was maybe just yeah then you're like all right we're on we're on we're on we got some traction I love that well one of the books that you've chosen for us to talk about is actually a kind of for all ages type book the eyes in the impossible tell me what you love about that book all right well the eyes in the impossible here I'm going to pick it up without dropping my glasses is by Dave Eggers.
5:10Ethan Hawke:And he and I are about the same age. And I remember when Heart Waking Work of Staggering Genius came out. I was so jealous. I was just like, it was the best title. I was like, somebody had the balls to write that as their first novel. I mean, it's like, it's so cool. And then he happens to be, he's been such a hero. Like when people talk about Gen X and my generation and when you see what he's done with books and his community work and the person he is and what he chooses to write about and the intelligence with which he does it and a kind of benevolent eye that, you know, as a kid you kind of dream that all novelists are going to be like Tolstoy or something.
5:55Ethan Hawke:They're going to be these wise, saintly figures and often they're not. But Dave Eggers is really, oh wow, hello, welcome. Um, um, Dave Eggers, don't worry about it. I've, people cry through most of my talks, so it's fine. Um, he, uh, I've long been a fan of his and out of the blue, I got asked to do the audio recording of this book. And I've done a handful of audio books, but usually it's so much time that I only do it if I know, like I did Slaughterhouse-Five, I did Dharma Bums, I've done Call the Wild. If I know it's a great book, I kind of sign up for it because it's a way, it's a little bit like going to school for a few days.
6:42Ethan Hawke:because if you read all of Call of the Wild out loud, you really start to see how the author's working. You see the word choices, the repetition of word choices, the way they build a sentence, the way it's... If the novel is great, you really can learn a lot. But I don't normally like to do new books because it's so time consuming. What if I don't like it? But I was like, all right, Dave Akers wants me to do this. I'm going to do this. and I read the book and it's kind of like, I'll give him some high praise. I really love E.B. White, you know, and Charlotte's Web is just, you know, one of the most glorious books of all time.
7:23Ethan Hawke:And it's hard to write a kid's book that speaks to children and truly activates the adult mind. And if you have to spend a lot of time reading to kids or in cars, listening to audio tapes, There's a gratitude whenever you bump into, well, like I mentioned The Outsiders, that's a great example. But there's a handful of unbelievable young adult work. And this is one of them because I liken it to, it's like if Henry David Thoreau and Woody Allen wrote a children's book. Like it opens you up to the natural world. It's told from the voice of Johannes, who is, well, he thinks he's a dog, but he's not sure.
8:09Ethan Hawke:Spoiler alert. Yeah, I don't want to, you got to read the book. But he's, it's the thing that I love, as an actor who likes writing, voice is the thing that turns me on the most. You know, the best example of his catch from the ride. Well, if you really want to hear about it, I guess the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like and all the David Copperfield kind of crap. But to tell you the truth, I really don't feel like going into it, first of all, because that stuff bores me. Second of all, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything personal about them.
8:40Ethan Hawke:Not that I don't like my parents. I'm not saying that. But I'm just saying, and like, that was the first time, J.D. Sallenge was the first time we were like, wait a second, this is a book? This feels like someone's talking to me. Yeah. And it's thrilling. And you see it in movies, you know, Spike Lee, the way he moves a camera has a voice. It's not like anybody else. The way Miles Davis plays the trumpet, Willie Nelson, the guitar, it's like everybody has a guitar, but then Willie plays it. Sounds like Willie. Like, how is that? Everybody writes and makes sentences. And sometimes somebody comes along and their sentence wakes you up.
9:15Ethan Hawke:And I have to read you the first sentence of this book because it's so good. And also doing the audio was so fun because it has all these animal voices. And so I got to cast. I put all the characters up on the little audio thing. And so some would be like from my real life and some would be like, all right, this, the raccoon, I'm going to cast Wally Shawn. And, you know, and I would just like, I would do, I just play different games with myself. And, oh, I don't know. It's so much fun when, I run like a rocket. I run like a laser. You have never seen speed like mine. When I run, I pull at the earth and I make it turn.
9:53Ethan Hawke:Have you seen me? You have not seen me. Not possible. You are mistaken. No one has seen me running because when I run, human eyes are blind to me. I run like light. Have you seen the movement of light? Have you? It's like, it's so good. And this dog is so lovable. And because we're all hurting, I think, culturally, psychologically, in some weird heart place, we're hurting for the natural world. And I think that this question that's omnipresent in our life about AI and everything is actually asking us like this really profound question that most of us don't want to be asked. So what does it mean to be human?
10:39Ethan Hawke:You know, was I born to be efficient? Was that what I was born to do, to make money as quickly as possible? You know, because a computer can do that better than me. Yeah. You know, and so, but that wasn't why I was born. And this book, you know, and like E.B. White, like, you know, a charlotte's web or something where you're really creating characters of animals it it invites you into the natural world and the way he writes about um oh just simple things like the dog cannot understand why when cars back up they have to go beep beep beep beep that's not pleasing to anyone no one wants to hear that yeah and he hates duck oh no yeah ducks yeah he doesn't want to talk That ducks.
11:28Ethan Hawke:I hate ducks. You have no idea how stupid they are. You just have no idea. It's very funny. But I felt the book gives you this feeling of like an invitation to the natural world and the part of you that is a wild animal. And I really treasure this book. And for the record, for all the sales agents out there, there is a sequel coming out. And I think I'm going to do the audio for that. Oh, amazing. But I don't know when it's coming out, but I know that it is coming out. and so read it now so that you're first in line for the sequel because it won the Newbery Award and I'm happy to say that I said when I read it this should win the Newbery Award and now it has a big gold seal on it and so I don't know it's amazing I mean people should buy it and read the book but also listen I loved how you handled chapter 36 where it's the word I could go almost like a hundred times when he's thinking about leaving and I was like well how the hell is Ethan going to read this part and you did it so beautifully Well, thank you.
12:29Ethan Hawke:You know what I thought about with that? I wonder, you can just see from here on the page, it's just over and over again, I could go, I could go, I could go, I could go. And it's about the idea of flight and how you maybe could get out of a bad situation. Wait, I could actually, I could change my life. And it started to sound to me like a beat poem. You know, like one of those crazy poems, Ginsburg and Kerouac. It was just something, I could go, I could go, I could go. It was so fun. And he's showing us the advantage of aging, which is he's getting really smart, Dave Eggers. Smart enough to simultaneously not talk down to anyone.
13:18Ethan Hawke:And there's a couple books that we're going to talk about tonight. All the books that I love have this quality, which is, do you remember? It's really totally cool. I will say something more interesting. When I first, I had it in my head when I was younger and I'd hear people talk about Tolstoy that I kind of thought that that was for smart people. Like, I just, I'm not that smart. I like Tolstoy. It's just, I don't know, it's Russian names. And then if you actually read it, it's very simple and very, very straightforward. Kind of like one of my favorite American authors, John Steinbeck, he doesn't use a fancy word if there's a simpler word.
13:58Ethan Hawke:The sentences are clear and direct, and you can understand it at 15, and you can understand it even better at 50. You know, it's not like he's taking on profound themes without trying to be profound. And this book is really, really funny and really silly and about what it means to be alive and the struggles we're having with the environment and with our relationship to the natural world. And he's not he's doing it in a completely unpretentious way. And so, yeah, I love it. It's amazing. And I think it also writes all these emotions in this really profound way. Like he's trying to resist being captured.
14:39And then when he is captured at one point, he feels all of this shame. And then he doesn't want to be part of a system. But even in the park, they are a system. They're like eyes who watch the park and observe it. And I also thought it was really beautiful on intuition. It writes really well. He talks a lot about how his body knows things before his mind does. Is that something you relate to? Ugh, I hate Mondays. King's Wine Cinnamon Swirl Bite? Taylor Hanson? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm. Bites, ba-jub-a-da-ba-ba.
15:11Ethan Hawke:Hey, let's get back to work, please. But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. Taylor Hanson? Nice. Try one. Mmm. Bites, ba-jub-a-da-ba-jub. King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. Don't you love them? There's nothing like it. Sweet swirly is all good. This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents, but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them.
15:54Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.
16:02Ethan Hawke:So much. I mean, most of all the trouble that I've put myself through in my life has come from not listening to that voice or trying to override that voice. And most of all the beautiful things in my life, I don't think we quite... I know I don't understand intuition. and but it's it's very present if people talk about meditation people talk about prayer there is a reason why really smart kind wise people often spend an hour a day or something sitting alone by themselves like um hearing your inner voice whatever it is is very gentle it's i don't i wish it was louder um but the world is pretty loud so maybe it's not trying to compete but there's been a handful of particularly in the arts for me a lot of the most creative successful decisions i've made were complete intuition um that i don't i can't even understand i mean i want to give you some examples but they sound so silly when you talk about it but one would be i remember i had met richard linkletter he came to see a play i was in and we hung out talking all night and i guess i gave him my number you know back at what we had answering machines in the day you know and and like i pressed play on my answering machine you know it was one of those things that like there's like be 15 messages that you know like for the last day and a half or something.
17:48And then this voice came on and I knew, I had no idea who it was, but I knew instantly that this was a really good friend of mine.
18:01Ethan Hawke:And then I realized, wait, I don't know this person. Oh, wait, that's the guy I met the other night. And I had this really strong feeling that I was going to know them. And everybody in my life was telling me not to do this movie with him, you know, the powers, the agents, people like that were telling me not to do this movie. And I just remembered that feeling. And I was like, no, I'm going to Vienna with that guy. I sensed it. And I knew it was the right thing to do. And I felt it with a lot of really powerful people in my life. And there's been a few jobs where sometimes, I don't know if you have this, but I've heard other people say this.
18:43Ethan Hawke:Whenever I've written, I've never had the idea where I'm like, I want to write a book. It doesn't happen like that. It happens like I can't stop thinking about this sentence. And I think it goes with this other sentence. And then I'll just start writing it down. I'll think, oh, that's kind of interesting. Why am I thinking about that? Well, I kind of want to, I guess I want to write about this. What would it be? I guess maybe it'll be, and I always trick myself that it's going to be a short story. I can't even imagine trying to write a novel, you know? But then you start doing it and then you finish the short story and you're like, well, that's not finished.
19:19Ethan Hawke:I wouldn't want to give that to anybody. And it just kind of, but it's listening to that voice and letting it speak. But yes, I think that is why I like it. And it's why I think there is a wild animal in us that knows when we're in love and knows difference between a healthy relationship and a toxic relationship and strangely even when we can tell it's a toxic relationship sometimes we want it you know yeah and and and we kind of have to want it until we know why we don't want it yeah and that's mysterious it is but you can't know things before you know them but i i i think i've always i did my first movie with a half wolf not first movies you know white this movie white fang i did and it was the greatest i've said this before but it was the greatest acting teacher in my life is doing a movie with the wild animal because they don't um if you're acting around them like they start looking at the camera what like who are you talking to because you're not talking to me like who who is it why are you being weird why are you moving your hand like that but like you know you actually just have to be with the wolf and if you actually just are present with it and talk to it and you know then it'll relate to you and it's the same way with a human scene partner and then mysteriously that's where acting teaches you about life it's the same with life yeah if you don't have an agenda with people they feel comfortable around you that's very true yeah um well it's a brilliant book i loved it so much me too the eyes and the impossible yeah and you will figure out what that means as you read it.
20:55Ethan Hawke:It's fast and has amazing art. And you can read it if you're grown up. And if you have kids, your kids will like it too. Yeah. My kids are like, I'm not going to like it. I don't want to listen to it because I had read the audio book and I wouldn't shut up about it. And then they read it. They're like, you know what, dad, that book was great. It is so good. I was thinking I'm going to buy it for my nieces and nephew. It's brilliant. Well, next let's talk about Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. What do you love about this book. All right, I'll start. There's a bookstore, not as big as this one, but it's another magic bookstore in Paris called Shakespeare and Company.
21:32Ethan Hawke:And I love that bookstore. I shot a movie in that, but we shot before sunset in there. And so, but I was making another film in Paris and I looked up on like when authors were reading on the front and I saw that Marilyn Robinson was coming and she was going to be reading, I can't, it was like Home or Gilead or one of those books. And I went to go see her speak and it was just so incredibly humbling to meet just an astonishing human being. The way that she spoke to the people in the room, she wasn't trying to entertain like I am she wasn't nervous like I am she was incredibly present I'd I'd I'd seen Ferlinghetti there a couple weeks before it's really weird and Ferlinghetti kind of had saint vibes you know it's just he had like the eyes of a saint and she had the mind of a saint uh and I watched her do a Q &A and I wish that she was president of the United States you I was like, this is the most serious human being I'd ever witnessed.
22:44Ethan Hawke:And I thought, wow, what a great novel is this supposed to be? So I started reading her books, and I really highly recommend Home and Gilead. They're both phenomenal books. Housekeeping is one I hadn't read. I picked books for tonight that have been recently in the last 18 months, two years or something had a big impact on me, as any possible big impact on me. This book, The Lowdown, is a TV show that I have where I play a bookstore owner, and I was doing press for it. And it's really tedious and hard because you have to put on this public facing face. And I went for a walk, and I stopped by a small used bookstore because I passed it.
23:30Ethan Hawke:I thought, that's weird that I'm passing one and I'm I should go in and then the guy seems so broke and sad who's working there that I was like all right they had a first edition of housekeeping and I thought I'll buy that for my wife I thought it's a you know it's if a movie actor walks into your bookstore he should buy it yeah you gotta buy something gotta buy something you know like this guy I don't want him going around he's talking here he didn't buy shit um I want him to say he bought a first edition housekeeping wow so i i bought it and i said this to you before we went on it was strange as i was riding over here i was like ethan what happened in that book like why did you pick that book and i i really couldn't tell you much that happened in the book except that something happened to me, which is, I felt when you asked about intuition, I don't know what that space inside of us is.
24:29I sometimes, have you ever drank way too much and you're like walking,
24:37Ethan Hawke:you're walking to bed or something and you're like, oh my God, I'm hammered. I can't see straight. but there's some tiny tiny part way in there that's sober that that that like kind of knows what's happening and going like wow ethan you are slurring your words oh you are wow you just spilled your you know you couldn't drink the water to rinse your mouth like wow you are in that little part of you that is the best part of you, the essence. I don't even know what the word is. This book touches it. And I realized when I read it that that's what literature does, that no... Well, other art forms can do it too, but not like literature.
25:25Ethan Hawke:The way it's so private. One of the things I love about going to the movies is the group event of it. Yes. It's the fun. It's a good movie. And with the group of people is like a party. But literature can talk about anything. For example, if you're under 18, close your ears. It's very difficult to talk about human sexuality. It's a big part of our lives and how we see ourselves and how we relate to other people. And if you make a movie about it, it instantaneously dances on the edge of pornography because you actually can't photograph it. But literature can talk about it, about how it relates to self-esteem, how you can feel inside, how that makes you feel, what could be positive about it, what could be negative about it, without anything crass.
26:24Ethan Hawke:if it's written well. I mean, I learned a lot from books, you know, about behavior and people. And I remember my sister passing me a passage from French Lieutenant's woman. We're like, oh, people do that? But it was written beautifully and with respect. And people do do that. Okay, wow, all right, interesting. And it's important to know that. It's important to know it in a context that is not crass. Yes. And likewise, I find it very difficult to put faith on screen, to act a moment of what people call faith, of spiritual enlightenment. Often when you see it in movies, it's not it. It's kind of in the Native community, you're not even supposed to photograph religious events.
27:17Ethan Hawke:It's inappropriate. It's not right. It's not a religious event if you're photographing. It becomes something else. There was something spiritual about her book and something that activated the part of you that can see. There's a chapter, several chapters in it, where it's like two young women play hooky. Basically, yeah. That's what happens. And they walk in the woods, and this sister doesn't like the other sister's dress, and they don't like to eat. I don't know what happened. I know that I understood what it meant to be a human being. And I understood that that was a great value. And that these tiny little things that happen in our life, betrayals.
28:00Ethan Hawke:I mean, it's the one thing I do remember is these sisters are so close. And then they break up, basically. At one point, she describes them as having a single consciousness, which I thought was a beautiful way of describing that. Having children and seeing siblings love each other and then seeing them have to go their own ways, it's like it's shattering. And this book gets at that feeling. And nobody's wrong. No, yeah. They're just growing up. Yeah, they want different things. You know, and it's what we're supposed to go through. And so I feel about this book the way Ralph Waldo Emerson has a quote I love, which is, I don't remember most of the books I've read like I don't remember most of the meals I've eaten.
28:44Ethan Hawke:I just know they nourished me and they're a part of me now. And that's the way I felt about this book. This book was the antidote to doing publicity. there's a thing if you do if you're me and you have to like it's happened in my lifetime actors have to sell shit yeah like it used to be you just had to act well you know and now you've got to go online and be like hey go see this and hey you're not amazing you know and funnily enough if you don't do it you're kind of letting down a lot of your collaborators and people say well why do you do it who cares why why do you care if it sells like well all these people worked really hard on the show and if it doesn't do well everybody feels like we failed and i might be able to help and so you get kind of caught in this game and it's anytime you're putting on a public face it's a little fake and you try not to and you try to be honest you try to be yourself but you're still public facing and um and so you know i can't sit up here and say god i love the eyes in the possible but this book sucks shit you know um you know you can't you know you have to be nice right and um or you get in a lot of trouble and and so what am i why am i going on this uh this book made me remember why i want to be an actor why i think being a human being matters um And I will admit that I was one of those young men.
30:18Ethan Hawke:I didn't read female writers as a young man. It's like, I don't know what I was scared I would lose my genitalia. I don't know what I was so nervous about. But it was, you know, my mom would constantly give me, you know, Virginia Woolf and I was like, well, give me the Hemingway. And there's something so female and so powerful about Marilynne Robinson. She's so powerful. And if you ever like wonder whether writing is an art form, read one of her books. They're all profound and wise. She also just captures so well the decisions each of us have to make as humans. So the sisters, Ruth and Lucille.
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31:06Lucille basically becomes much more of a conformist, right? She sort of wants to, she doesn't like how sort of itinerant their carer Sylvie is. and whereas yeah whereas Ruth is more but well Ruth one of the lines I wrote down is when Sylvie gets Ruth alone and she goes and she tries to ask her what she thinks about something she goes I suppose I don't know what I think which I think is such a interesting thing to capture and a bit
31:28Ethan Hawke:what we were talking about backstage it's hard a little bit after that she says I I'm going to paraphrase but it's something that really stayed with me which is that I think I can never differentiate between my thinking mind and my dreaming mind. I can't tell the difference what I learned from my senses and what I learned from my imagination. And I feel that way. Particularly, I think maybe that one related to me as an actor, sometimes I get confused and I think I was a cop in LA. But strangely, I'm not that far off. Meaning, I really imagined it. And I did these ride-arounds, and I really thought a lot about it.
32:11Ethan Hawke:I really did learn a lot about it. And it's a part of me. And our imagination is this unbelievable tool for empathy and compassion. And all these books around us are like gates of entry. You know, there's a great line I love, a poem is a gateway drug. you know it's like each one of these books is a little gateway into another unit it's astonishing that if we wanted to right now we could just sit down and read the autobiography of benjamin franklin benjamin franklin is talking to me right now holy shit really you know and like it's kind of astonishing and anyway meaning um what am i talking about why am i talking about ben franklin Well, just, you know, that finding that you connect, she was talking about in the book.
32:59Oh, Powers of Imagination.
33:00Ethan Hawke:And this kid has nothing. She has nothing going on in her life. She has this basic, you know, this... Finger bone is the name of the town. Yeah, there's nothing to do. And her brain goes off on the river and the moss and the leaves. And what is fire? What is, you know, what is the house floods? It's an incredible book because there's a great book great Flaner O 'Connor line, which is that anybody who's lived past the age of eight has enough to write about the rest of their life. You know, it's really true. We just undervalue our own experiences. That's so true. Well, you made it like when you're at college, that's when you stepped away from college to go and do Dead Poets Society, right?
33:43How did you like have the confidence to do that? And that sort of knowing that that was the right decision?
33:47Ethan Hawke:I think about that all the time. Really? Yeah. I don't know. You just, but you knew it. Maybe it's the intuition. I'd see my own kids and I get so scared for them. Just be safe. Be safe. And I was extremely... I wanted to be an actor so badly. And I felt certain that it was going to work out. And I don't know where I got that from. and I'm really grateful for it, but I, there's so many things I did when I look back on it that were so stupid. I mean, they were things that I just wouldn't advise my children to do, but they worked out. For example, it's a silly little thing. My mom was so, so upset with me for dropping out of college.
34:49Ethan Hawke:I have to give some credit there, But so I took, you know, I thought I had made like$28 ,000 on Dead Poets Society or something. And I thought I was the richest person in the world. Ugh, I hate Mondays. King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite? Taylor Hanson? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm. Hey, let's get back to work, please. But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. Taylor Hanson? Nice. Try one. Mmm. Mmm.
35:25King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. There's nothing like it.
35:33This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.
36:02Well, back at college you probably was. I really did.
36:04Ethan Hawke:I was like, shit, I'm loaded. And I took about half of it and I made a short film with the money. and it was a way to prove to my mother. My mother had said this thing. It's like, if you're going to think about dropping out of college, it's like, yeah, you don't have to go to college, but you have to take responsibility for your own education or you will be an idiot. And you'll be dead. You'll be a drug addict. Like she was so nervous and so scared. And she's like, the great thing about college is it puts you in a community with other people that are learning. and there's like fence posts that you can latch onto.
36:47Ethan Hawke:And she said, if you're going to throw out the fence posts, you've got to make some. So I said, all right, I'm going to go to film school. I'm going to make a film. That's how I'll go to film school. And I did it. And I'm really glad I did it, but it did take balls. Yeah, it did. I mean, it was what made me think I was going to make another 14 grand, you know? But I just thought I would. I also was heavily influenced by the romance of artistic poverty. so I kind of thought that would be cool. Like I want, you know, I read somewhere that Allen Ginsberg's high earning year was 17 grand. So I was like, all right, I already got, I got Allen Ginsberg beat.
37:26Ethan Hawke:And so I don't know, I had a lot of,
37:32Ethan Hawke:I really just don't know. Yeah, well, it worked out so it doesn't matter but it is an interesting thing, isn't it? Especially when you're trying, I think, as a young person to work out when those moments are that you should not do what everyone else tells you to do. It's hard. It's really hard. And I have a lot of young people in my life now, and I can really see how hard it is. Yeah. Because there is a time to go with the flow. Yeah. Sometimes you don't have to like, but it was very important to me to find myself, and I knew that no one else could do it. Yeah. You know, so I would get advised to do this job that I wasn't interested in or this job and I didn't want to do it.
38:11Ethan Hawke:Or I was advised to take this path more traveled by. And I just, I had a great sense of playfulness. I wanted to have fun. And I had a great trust that I was going to land on my feet. And part of, I think why I did that, is there were a lot of ways I could land on my feet. Meaning I wasn't, it would have been okay if I wasn't a famous actor. like that wasn't the goal the goal was to have a meaningful substantive life in the arts yeah okay that's yeah there's a lot that that i can control a little bit yeah you know uh being a successful actor requires a lot of luck and a lot of things you don't control but um i will say this when i saw marilyn robinson in a situation very much like i am right now i thought that she would be i went up and introduced myself and she couldn't have given a shit and well and and in fact, I think she was slightly annoyed that I thought she was supposed to recognize me or something.
39:11Ethan Hawke:She just couldn't be bothered with me. And I got to follow her out to dinner because I knew the people who own that bookstore and they invited me to this dinner. And I got to listen to all these young people who worked at the bookshop came out to this dinner and they just pummeled her with questions. And she's very inspiring life because she's lived a full life. She didn't orient her life around just being fabulous you know she's her family life is very important to her and she was really encouraging these people to have a rich and full life and not orient themselves too much around um what society deems successful that's important and so i high i picked housekeeping i could have easily picked any one of her books but this is the last one i read and um it was uh It's brilliant.
39:59Yeah, it's really,
40:00Ethan Hawke:I was kind of surprised on my way over here because I was like, what about this book? I Wikipedia it. Man, people love this book. I didn't know. I thought I kind of found it. Turns out it's some Time Magazine's 100 best books ever. And I didn't even know. So I'm impressed with my taste. Well, then the next book we're going to talk about is one that you are a big advocate for that isn't on all the lists that you believe it should be, which is The Animal Family. Tell us about your love of this. This is a very old copy that I had to get online because it's not. Well, that's why we're talking about this book.
40:32Ethan Hawke:This book is really hard to find. Yeah. And I could not recommend it more. It's called The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell. And Maury Sendak does the drawings in here from Where the Wild Things Are fame. And this book, sometimes I just, if I'm bored or something, I'll go online and I'll buy five used copies of this book. to give to people as presents because it unlocks, I guess technically it's a kid's book, but I've never met any kids who like it. And that's not true. But I had read this book when I was young and it's about a hunter who falls in love with a mermaid and they take in a baby bear who becomes their child, this bear and then they um befriend a small lynx yeah who becomes their other child and they're the animal family a man and a mermaid and a bear and a lynx and it just reminds you that the world is full of magic and the writing oh it's so yeah i mean this guy should be famous you know i i he i I looked him up one time, and he was a very successful poet in his day.
41:54Ethan Hawke:And is there such a thing as a successful poet anymore? Yeah. I don't know. But then I've had kind of two litters, you call them, my first two kids and then my second two kids. And when – I'm going to get canceled. and uh and and i had this cabin in nova scotia and when my first two kids were young we went up there in the summer and my wife is the best reader in the world she i don't some people have unique gifts and she can read a book out loud and everybody and she had these voices for what the mermaid sounded like and what the lynx sounded like in the bear and it was just one of those things you just pray for as a parent where everybody couldn't wait for dinner to be over so we could read the animal family.
42:51Ethan Hawke:And it was a very magical memory for us as a family. Well, when the other two kids came along, when they were about the same age, Maya and Levon, my older ones, and it was the pandemic, and we were trapped in the house in a pandemic, and they had to, let's read the animal family out loud again. And so we did the same thing again. And I'm telling you, if you ever doubt the power of literature about why we say we like the Strand Bookstore or why we come to these events and things like this, is this is an art form that champions our minds. And the imagination in this, and I know it's about a bear and a lynx and stuff, but the humanity that's in it and the beauty, it just fills your eyes and your heart up with magic.
43:40Ethan Hawke:Yeah. And it's so funny in parts as well, the way they describe the when the mermaid and the man are like, you know, he was like, why would you not like to sleep somewhere dry? And she was like, that is the weirdest thing you've ever said to me. And like, it's just it just captures it so well, like for a child or an adult. And there's like so many layers to it. It's really beautiful. It's so beautiful. And I remember always feeling like something horrible is going to happen. Yes. Yes. Something's horrible. Especially with the little boy when he arrives. I know, but it doesn't. No. Yeah, it really doesn't.
44:13Ethan Hawke:It's okay. It really doesn't. And it's kind of like, it feels like, you know, when you go on a long trip and you're like, oh, somebody's going to get sick. I mean, you get home. We made it. Yeah. So I felt like, oh, the animal family lives. And it's sort of like, it really pushes against conformity. Like there's this bit where I think, I don't know how it comes up, but there's talking about why the mermaid doesn't keep house. And it's like, if you had a seal who could talk, you wouldn't have them cleaning the house. Like it's just these like really beautiful ways of like how relationships can form in lots of different ways.
44:45Ethan Hawke:Yeah. And how the masculine and feminine don't have to be the same to be equal. Yes. You know, and that's a hard thing for our brains sometimes, you know, they form this family where everybody has a role and a power and a strength that is equal and beautiful. And they're all just totally different. Yeah, totally. But, you know, and I really just, I just so highly recommend it. And it's the greatest Christmas present in the world. Everybody will love you if you give them this book. Don't you think? I agree. I completely agree. One thing I've noticed through your books, there's a lot of isolation in them.
45:24Are you someone who likes the kind of big unknown? Like, as in, do you like being on your own in nature more than in a city?
45:31Ethan Hawke:Oh, that's my absolute favorite. Oh, is it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was the irony when you ask, when I dropped out of college, I told my sister, through a weird thing I found about an audition for this movie called Dead Poets Society, right? And I got the script and I saw there were like seven parts for young men. This is the arrogance, the unbelievable arrogance of youth. It's like, I called my sister, I said, I read this thing. There's seven parts. so if i don't get one of them then i i suck like i'm not an actor so but i bet i'll get one of them you know i really bet i will and if i don't then i'm gonna go be jack london i was like okay she's like what do you mean i was like no i'm gonna join the merchant marines and i'll go i'll find a place like i'll get sent to alaska or something like that and i'll be a writer so i'm just gonna let the universe decide which is what i'm gonna be and she was like okay ethan you know And I went in on this audition.
46:35Ethan Hawke:But it's kind of funny to me that it was Jack London. Like I had him in my brain because I really, I just loved Call the Wild and White Fang. And it's not like I am. I long to be that nature person, the kind of person who can go be in outdoors for months and not need anything. I'm not, but man, do I love it. It's my favorite thing to do is to go on hikes with my kids or go walking or camp or look at the moon. One of the things that I think is so hard about our life here is we just, we don't see the stars. No, I agree. And it's such a, when you're out in the country, and I get to film a lot, so I get to be out on location and stuff.
47:20Ethan Hawke:And when you realize that people used to look at the Milky Way every night, when you actually can see, when it's actually dark out and you can see the Milky Way, it's very clear that we are not the center of the universe right is huge vast unknown that's there for us and it was there for people every night and we kind of tune it out and it's just completely out of focus but it's there all the time even in the daytime right it's kind of that great thing when you watch the dawn you watch the stars all fade you're like oh they're not leaving i just can't see them and oh my god there's this the unbelievable thing in the other Marilyn Robinson book.
47:59Ethan Hawke:I think it's Gilead. It hit me. I'm going to try to say this. It hit me so profound the way she writes up. They're digging a grave in one of these books. I don't know why this has popped up to me, but they're talking about the sun setting and the realization this character has that the sun is in fact not setting. That's not what's happening. The sun is not doing anything different, nor has it ever in the entirety of my life. It's actually been one day. It's still the same day. It's just this thing is spinning around. But there's been no interval. And it struck me. I wish I had the paragraph that I could, because it's so beautiful the way she writes about it.
48:45Ethan Hawke:And I see that in the stars every night, too. And I do think it's one of the things that literature can do for us, is bring us there and remind us about it. All the great writers have the natural world. I mean, the thing that was so wonderful about learning Shakespeare is you see how much the natural world is in Shakespeare. And you're like, he's constantly invoking something real for your imagination in language like that. I know. When I growing up in the UK, David Attenborough's TV shows were like the relaxing on the sort of body thing of books when you're young as well. And I just loved his accent.
49:21Ethan Hawke:Oh, my God. I mean, he's amazing. Well, I mean, I love that. And I agree. It should be a much bigger book. And I think people will find plenty of joy in it. It needs to be reprinted. I know. It's really, we're championing its song. Yes. So let's will it to be. I hope we all meet 10 years from now and say, hey, you know that book's back in print? Yeah. because we all went online and ordered it. Exactly. Well, your final book that we're going to talk about is a biggie. Lonesome Duff. Tell me what you love about this one. Okay. So I was born in Texas and my father's favorite book was All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, which is an early Larry McMurtry book.
50:03Ethan Hawke:I don't know if he would say it's his favorite book now. I just mean it was on the bookshelf when I was about 16 or something. I was like, what's that? He said, that's my favorite book. and it became kind of my Catcher in the Rye, the way the Catcher in the Rye is for a lot of people or something. It was a book I carried around with me and I read it over and over again. I don't know why exactly. It's not the greatest book in the world. I just loved Danny Deck and I liked McMurtry's observations. In that book, I think, I didn't know Larry McMurtry or whatever, but in my armchair psychologist, it was like before he knew what kind of writer he was and he was experimenting with like, maybe I'm like a beat poet writer.
50:43Ethan Hawke:Like it's a slightly different personality than the Terms of Endearment, Larry McMurtry. And then I read Last Picture Show, which might be one of my all-time favorite books. It's just incredible. Horseman Passed By, Terms of Endearment. Like I was a big McMurtry fan, partly because the reason why his books make such great film adaptations is his dialogue and his characters are fantastic. I agree. They are just fantastic, which really lends itself to adaptation. But Lonesome Dove, to me, was like Larry McMurtry's sellout book or something. Everybody had, I just refused to read it. I was like, that's just a corny Western stuff.
51:32Ethan Hawke:My whole child was inundated with Westerns. And I wanted to, you know, I was taken to the Alamo as an eight-year-old, like it was a holy relic, you know. And I was kind of in, by the time I was 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, I was kind of in rebellion to a lot of the kind of lies about that. So I just, I really just resisted. And none of those Western Larry Murtry things was I interested in at all until this year I'm doing The Lowdown 2 and they cast Tommy Lee Jones, who has to play my father in the show. And these people over here and I haven't looked at you one time. Thank you. They cast Tommy Lee Jones to play my dad in the show.
52:17Ethan Hawke:Now, I'd seen the TV movie, Lonesome Devil, and I thought it was insanely great. You know, I was the perfect age. It came out as like 18, 19, and I loved it. You know, so that was another reason why I didn't think I needed to read the book. And Tom Euglies, we're talking, and we're in a bookstore because that's where the set is happening, and there's a copy of Lonesome Doves there. And I said, God, I just lied. You know, sometimes it just comes out of your mouth. Like, you're trying to impress somebody. God, I love this book so much, you know? And he's like, a lot of people, you know, they watch the TV show, they think they read the book.
52:57Ethan Hawke:The book's so much better than the TV show. And he's like, oh, God, I know. And I'm just like, the lies are flying out of my mouth. And I half believe myself, like, I've read a lot of Larry McMurtry. Like, I really like Larry McMurtry. I have not read Lonesome Dove. and um and i'm one of the assholes he's talking about who saw the show and pretend to read the book yeah those jerks and so i i didn't feel like confessing to him but i promised myself it's like okay when this show ends i'm reading lonesome dove right tomley jones one smartest people i've ever met if he thinks the book is great i mean the tv show is amazing yeah so he's like, you know, people do themselves a disservice if they haven't read that book.
53:44Ethan Hawke:Like, all right, I'm going to read it. And I read it this summer. I finished it a couple of weeks ago. And it's frankly like reasons to live. I tried to pick books that I read recently because often when people ask me what books I liked, they're all books I read when I was young. You know, like when I guess when I was falling in love with literature and so they hit you harder, something, or is it that I don't like new fiction? I don't think that's it. It's just those ones. It's like first loves or something like that. And this book knocked me on, if you haven't read it, it's so much better than you think it is.
54:24Ethan Hawke:I think it, or than I thought it was. I really put it up there. What's the, it's on par with Tolstoy. It's that good. Yeah. And the human observations, It's not the old West that makes it good. It's the observations about people. He was trying. I read a lot about it when I finished it. Because you know when you're so sad? I mean, I'll admit this to you. We were on a family vacation when I finished it. And in front of everybody, they're all like, you know, chit-chatting and doing a puzzle. And I just laid on the floor and wept. I hate Mondays. King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite? Taylor Hanson?
55:05Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.
55:09Ethan Hawke:Hey, let's get back to work, please. But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. Taylor Hanson? Nice. Try one. Mmm.
55:23King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. There's nothing like it.
55:27Ethan Hawke:Sweet swirly is all good. This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.
56:00Ethan Hawke:and I didn't know if I was weeping because of something that happened in the book or because I finished that the experience was over yeah it shook me to my core and it's not it's I didn't weep because the world sucks it's not that kind of book where it makes you feel like the world. It's got so much love in it.
56:24Ethan Hawke:When I was reading about it, he was trying to write an anti-Western. He had written a film script. He got hired after the success of HUD and Last Picture Show. He got hired by John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart to write a cowboy picture. And he kind of wrote this screenplay about two old Texas Rangers because they were old geezers by then. He tried to come up with something that they could play. And they didn't like it. And in his anger, he's like, you know what? To hell with Hollywood. To hell with those old geezers. To hell with the Western. The Westerns are full of lies. I'm going to write a book that's a real Western.
57:01Ethan Hawke:Now, he got angry later because the way people reacted to it, the myth of the West, they loved so much. They just couldn't get over it. Also, most people just saw the show and didn't read the book. and the show, it doesn't have the anti-Western aspect to it. But the portraits of women in the book are phenomenal. I agree. And I never really understood how awful it was to be female in the 1800s. And the way it's clear how well-researched it is, the multiple different kinds of women, There's all kinds of women and all kinds of men. And each one feels ripped from real life. It's like, oh, well, that character must be his dad.
57:51Ethan Hawke:Like somebody knows, oh, that character must be his uncle or his wife or his sister. They're all so specific and so rich. And then you combine that with this epic storytelling. It's like, I made my wife, she hasn't finished it yet. my wife is reading it now and she keeps saying oh if i don't know if i can get the next chapter is is this gonna happen because you know it's one of those books you you keep trying to guess like oh i know what's gonna happen i know what's gonna happen and i'm like just you gotta trust mcmurtry yeah he's got you yeah some bad things are gonna happen you're gonna be able to handle it yeah keep reading you know it's like it's he's not cruel to you yeah the reader and he doesn't lie to you.
58:34Ethan Hawke:And it's full of all the pain and realities of what that life must have been like. It's so... Here's the other thing I love about it is it's what, 900 pages? It's epically long, okay? And man, when you're done, you wish it was 150 pages longer. I mean, you just really do. But he doesn't mention God once. And it's so interesting that he can get at so many profound ideas about why we're alive, why we have to die. What does it mean to be an American? What doesn't it mean to be an American? What are the lies we've been told? We're not the first generation to be lied to. It's like humanity is just constantly narrativizing stories.
59:28Ethan Hawke:And some of them are true and some of them aren't. And these people are living, they're smart enough to know that they're living at the end of an age. But then you start realizing, oh, right, every generation is at the end of one. Yeah, totally. Everything is always shifting. And the fact that he can do all that without any religious agenda. Yeah. And there's really no political agenda either. No, it's just very human. It's just like full of the richness and details of how unique and weird we are. Yeah, I agree. I mean. It's an extraordinary book. and yeah it's and it's I've been listening to it and I've loved it in that form as well it's great the actor who reads it is fantastic yeah well talking of that and I think this will have to be my last question because I can see we're at time but did you see that they're basically going to be adapting it um the same crew who are doing Easter Veeden and did you see that Texas Monthly have decided you should be Augustus everybody in my life sent me that What are your thoughts?
1:00:36Ethan Hawke:I gotta be so cool. Yeah. I don't have any thoughts. Okay. Love it. I'll kill somebody if I'm not in that. There we go. You heard it here first.
1:00:55Well, thank you all so much for coming. And thank you, Ethan, for choosing four incredible books for us to talk about and just really invoking the joy of reading with all of us. It's been a pleasure.
1:01:04Ethan Hawke:It's so awesome that so many of you came tonight, you know? I mean, there's so many things you could be doing on a Saturday night, but I'm so honored that you came, and I really love this bookstore, and I really appreciate being asked, so thank you to you guys for making this happen. And let's be an open rebellion to a universe that wants us all to disappear and not exist. Amen to that.
1:01:33Ugh, I hate Mondays. King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite? Taylor Hanson? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.
1:01:42Ethan Hawke:Hey, let's get back to work, please. But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. Taylor Hanson? Nice. Try one. Mmm.
1:01:55King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. There's nothing like it.
1:02:00Ethan Hawke:Good
From the publisher
For Bustle’s first One Nightstand Live, Charlotte Owen sits down with Ethan Hawke at Strand Bookstore. The five-time Oscar nominee talks about his love of The Animal Family, explains why he was jealous of Dave Eggers, and shares his true feelings on those Lonesome Dove rumors.
Ethan Hawke’s One Nightstand picks:
The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Ethan currently stars with Russell Crowe in The Weight, in theaters now. Season 2 of The Lowdown premieres Oct. 14 on FX and Hulu.
Credits
Director of Photography: Marshall Stief
Assistant Camera: Jasmine Velez, Konstantin Yelisevich
Audio: Trokon Nagbe
Producer: Aubree Lennon
Editor: James Koroni
