Kim Haeri interview script

Chasing the light

Dear Mr. Ethan Hawke

Before I start, I would like to thank you for allowing me a conversation by e-mail.
An interview over phone could have been more intimate, but I realize that an e-mail interview will give me another privilege to taste your writing style.

-Coming-of-age stories in general tend to be nostalgic, sometimes even uncomfortably narcissistic. By the time you started writing ‘Hottest State’, however, I guess it was pretty much in the present tense.( I read somewhere else that you were about 21 years old back then. ) Then again, you made it into a film 10 years later, which must have changed your distance from the story. Apart from the difference of medium, how did the time lag affect the way you tell this story?
=I identified less with William. Of course the story was still extremely
personal but it felt like I was adapting someone else’s novel.

-Texas and New York seem to occupy the most significant place in your mindscape. Could you let me know how special they are respectively?
=I am a New Yorker. My ancestors settled Texas… so it has the stuff of
MYTH to me.

-Though being obscure compared to William, I could deeply sympathize with Sara’s fear that the relationship should deprive her of hard-earned independence and her resolution not to repeat self-destroying affair. Most of audiences identify William with you immediately. If Sara also shares a piece of you or anima in you, I would love to hear about it.
=You know, in my second book I can honestly say that both Characters are
ME… the male and the female are both different aspects of myself. But
in the Hottest State I feel I was less successful in creating a 3
dimensional female person because I didn’t put any of myself into her.
I used women I knew for inspiration… but I don’t think I KNEW them
well enough.

-‘Hottest State’ ultimately talks about the enduring relation between the way one handles a relationship and the psychological impact made by his parents. To what degree do you think this factor is decisive?
= I think it is terribly decisive… sometimes I think Life happens to
us, you know? That we spend the bulk of our lives reacting to people and
events. We react to our parents, our community, our education… we are
not nearly as “in control” as our egos would have us believe.

-I know you are a passionate reader as well. Could you explain what is there in reading to an actor? (I remember I used to do a bit of performance with nobody around while reading children’s book.) Also I wonder which elements you put priority on when reading a scenario as an author yourself.
=Reading is vital to compassion…. understanding the world from a
variety of perspectives… it is integral to the life of an actor.

-I am nearly of the same age with you. By some magical coincidence, I reviewed ‘Before Sunrise’ in 1996 and 9 years later was assigned to write about ‘Before Sunset’. (Yes, I have been in this line of work too long, perhaps outstaying welcome.  ) The night I finished the review of the latter story of Jesse and Celine, I somehow had this weird feeling that a period of my life has sealed with it. Looking back your filmography I found that the two films accidentally enclose your second decade of acting career in bracket. I would like to know if the two films have any personal meaning for you too, for example, like a pair of bookends.
=Those two films ARE me… in a way… I can’t really explain but no
other work I have done compares in terms of personal expression. This
includes The Hottest State.
My collaboration with Linklater has had a powerful impact on my artistic
life.There are other films I am Proud of as a craftsman… Training Day,
Gattaca, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead,… but they were not as
defining for me.

-People often confuse an actor’s character with his real personality. On the other hand, an actor’s personality does get tinted by the character s/he plays to some extend, I presume as ‘Lust, Caution’ showed. You went thorough your formative years performing all along. Can you think of any character you were in which shaped your personality in a way?
=No. Other performances shaped my personality.. Nicholson in “One Flew
Over The Cuckoo”s Nest” or Beatty in “REDS” but my own performances
not so much…they are more an outlet…

-William in ‘Hottest State’ says lines meaning he doesn’t want to pretend to be someone else for the rest of his life. Was that partly your own confession?
=Definitely… It used to really bother me that my only talent was
pretending to be other people… it seemed a rather dubious attribute.
But now I see a lot of that insecurity about identity was really just
youth.

-You have been leading such a varied artistic career successfully. How much weight/importance do you put on film-directing among all those activities? How do you divide meaning and energy into various outlets of creativity? To be honest, it seems fantastic to me since acting job is all about waiting for someone to call you. I guess whenever you are outside filming you could always go back to your writing where you left, instead of being bored.
=I just do what seems to make the most sense at any given moment. I
started writing because I couldn’t stand the life of an unemployed
actor. Directing is thrilling because it uses you up completely… but
I have come to believe that acting, writing, and directing all
compliment each other and each can teach different lessons.

-I know you want to adapt your second novel onto screen as well and so on. Do you want to make the novels into films yourself rather than letting somebody else do it because it’s your original story? Or, is it because your own novels are relatively comfortable material with which you evolve as a director?
=I don’t think I will ever direct ASH WEDNESDAY… I don’t know why.

- Would you call yourself a self-disciplined person?
=I don’t know. In some ways, yes… in some ways, no.

-Could you tip me the last line you wrote on your note that you carry around for the next book?
=Can’t think of anything worth quoting.

-I guess that ‘the poster boy of Gen-X’ reputation must have been a bit of unwelcome favor to you. How do you now make sense of being an emblem of something other than yourself? Personally, I never took the label attached to our generation seriously in 90s (‘just a marketing tool!’) but I become more affectionate toward my generation as time passes. What about you?
=I’ve just learned that you can’t prepare yourself or control what the
world makes out of you… You just have to try to keep your aims true
and show up for work.

-My impression is that among possible influences on your directorial style from your past collaborators, Mr. Linklater’s one is most visible in ‘Hottest State’. Or it might be also true that you two are such good soul mates. Could you elaborate on the long-term influence of your relationship with him in terms of creativity? Plus, I sensed some affinity when I saw ‘2 days in Paris’ written and directed by Ms. Julie Delpy. Have you ever worried this bonding could be limiting for you as much as empowering?
=Richard helped Julie and me to have confidence in ourselves and to
understand more deeply the power of Cinema. But no, it could not be
limiting… unless you mean in the way that any success in life is
limiting because it defines you. I don’t know, I love Julie and Rick…
and am happy with whatever comes (positive or negative) from our
collaboration.

-You are known to have very precise taste about music. Not surprisingly, ‘Hottest State’ is full of musical grace. To me the film even has a quality of musical. (It reminds me of an Irish film ‘Once’. The small indie film is this year’s sleeper hit in this country.) Could you introduce the process of choosing songs for ‘Hottest State’, and finally your general principle on scoring a film?
= Both films I directed rely heavily on score. Jeff Tweedy of WILCO did
the first, and Jesse Harris did the second.
It’s mostly a gut thing… music sets tone and mood. It’s vital to the
“personality” of the film…. I am proud of both scores they suit their
story and are also some pretty damn good music.

-You played the role of Russian Revolutionary Michael Bakunin on stage. (Accidentally I am reading a book including his short biography.) He seems to have been a natural-born agitator whereas you have been known soft-spoken sensitive soul. I would like to know how you approached the character and the play? Having talked about a political figure, it occurs to me that we are expecting presidential elections both in the U.S. and here. As a member of artistic community do you feel any responsibility to make your opinion public and to communicate?
=That’s a tough question. You don’t want to abuse your position as a
public person to fill the world up with more uneducated opinions… and
at the same time every citizen should be allowed and encouraged to have
opinions, express them, and try to manifest their ideas… I am often
confused about when is a good time to SHOUT and when is a god time to
listen. My country right now is doing many things I find reprehensible.
Ultimately, I hope that over my lifetime my politics will be manifest in
my art… not with any agenda other then helping to hold a mirror up to
society.

- I shouldn’t waste my very limited number of questions on trivia but cannot help asking. What is the story behind naming your production company ‘Under the Influence’? Secondly, a report has it that you wrote the novels with manual typewriter. If that was the case, I definitely want to hear your opinion behind that decision. Weren’t you already familiar with writing on computer monitor?
=Under the Influence… is a reference to Cassavetes.
I did write much of both novels (just the first draft) on a manual
typewriter because the delete button is an enemy to creativity. I love
just writing… not sculpting paragraphs or creating a beginning, middle
and end to a story… just writing. Trying to find “the voice” of
characters… and I find that if I compose on a computer I immediately
start trying to get something ready for publication as opposed to just
taking off the guard rails and trying to conjure up your subconscious.

-I was especially fascinated by your talent to articulate evaporating emotions and fleeting happiness. It means that you are the kind of person who never let things disappear easily. In ‘Before Sunset’ Jesse talks about his book ‘This Time’ in which a man sees the reincarnated image of his first love overlapped on his little daughter. Despite the ephemeral nature of our experience, do you believe there exists some eternal time or dimension?
=God, I really don’t know. I believe in the present moment and that the
past and the future are both alive in every instant if you are paying
attention.

-What sentences would you like for your epitaph? In case you don’t want a tombstone, what kind of obituary would you like?
=Hmmmm more than anything else I would like two things in my obituary
first, that it be LONG and span at least eight decades, second that
people weep unceasingly for days after they read it.

-Thank you for your patience.
=Thank you.