Quotes from John Hawkes


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You never really forget who you are. If you did, you'd need to seek some professional help.


Some friends of mine bothered me for a long time about getting on the social networking pages. They were close friends that I liked to mess with, and I think that I kind of enjoyed for a while that it bothered them so much. Now they've just kind of given up.


I went to a performance of 'The Crucible' at the Guthrie when I was a sophomore in high school, and I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do.


In the time between when you first read a script and are offered the role and the time when you begin to shoot, I really love putting in the time and work on that and getting a solid backstory to a character and researching all that I can about what that person does for a vocation or their upbringing or where they're from.


If a musician wants to be an actor, everyone thinks that's pretty cool. But if an actor wants to play a song, even if they've been doing it for 40 years, that's bad news.


I've never had any delusions about being a leading man, and it's not sour grapes to say that in the best films that I've always enjoyed, the cliched leading man type isn't a part of the picture.


It's not like every director in every movie is seeking me out by any means, there are a lot of things I'm not suited for, a lot of things I'm not interested in, and a lot of things that directors wouldn't be interested in me for.


Being a kid, as all kids do, you feel out of place or like kind of a freak. You wake up feeling like your head got put onto someone else's body that day.


As an actor, you don't often get a chance to know exactly the impact of what the audience is seeing, even though you can ask where the frame is. A move that feels tiny can be huge, and vice versa.


As an actor you have to have a strong vivid imagination as you're working and when the camera's rolling, but there's certainly a part of you that is aware of real life, that you're making a movie.


Hitchhiking was such a pure form of existence. You'd wake up in the morning, and you'd have no idea what your day was going to be. And that's something I've never been able to shake. I loved that.


You don't really ever think you're that crazy person you're playing.


When you're just starting out, and someone you think is a real storyteller says something good about you, that helps.


There's a lot of skeletons in my closet!


'The New York Times' thing... I think any actor would be thrilled to be profiled in that paper.


Starting in the mid-'80s, I played in a band called Meat Joy, and we made our own record, toured.


Part of the way that I work is to observe.


It's tough being an actor making music, because even I have a knee-jerk reaction to that.


It's probably odd for someone to read an interview where the interviewee is worried about exposure while they're talking in an interview.


If you're telling a story it's always best not to play the ending.