Ethan Hawke: He talks about acting as a drug

At the Venice International Film Festival, Ethan Hawke (53) discussed how “greed rules our universe” and how “embarrassing” it is for the acting industry that he has only worked with a handful of female filmmakers during his long career. He compared working with a particular director to “the joys of drug use” that one hears about.

Hawke has made films “with many men from all over the world,” the actor said. One of them is particularly memorable. When Hawke remembered his first film festival in the lagoon city – he was 18 years old at the time – and his collaboration with director Peter Weir (80) on the film “Dead Poets Society” (1989), he began to rave.

At that time, Weir was “one of the few masters I have ever met, and still is.” It was impressive “to work with him as a young person and absorb what he had to teach and then see the effect in action.”

“You just want to do it again”

The actor compared what this experience had triggered in Hawke to a high: “It was a bit like hearing about the joys of taking drugs. You just want to do it again. It’s such a wonderful feeling because you don’t feel alone.” Being an actor is a strange double-edged sword, “because on the outside you are celebrated for your success, but the real joy of acting is disappearing.”

“You feel yourself disappearing and becoming part of this dream. And that is the feeling that is so wonderful. And you see how the dream lives in other people, and that is where this feeling of elation comes from.” He had barely left Venice at the age of 18 when “I just wanted to do it again. And when I look at you, I am so grateful that I am here with you and can still be a part of it,” the 53-year-old thanked the applauding audience.