I’ve lied and often contradicted myself to dumbfound people

“Usually, I write the detailed biography of the character. For me it’s the only possible way. To play a sad scene, many will only for example think of their mother’s death. I consider it’s a mistake for an actor to cross the boundary that separates him from his character. Because then you impose him your own references. That’s why I need to have landmarks that only belong to my character. For example, for “My Own Private Idaho” I wrote a lot. And once the movie was done, I burned it all.”

“Honestly, I don’t think this way. I never think of me as an actor. I see all of this as new experiences each time, like as many different lives. As many reincarnations. So when I watch my last movie, I’m unable to judge or to be critical. For me, it’s past, and I don’t feel any connection to it anymore, like if it was somebody else than me that I’m not responsible for. I immersed myself in another life that the character appropriated. He expressed himself through me, not the other way around.”
"Absolutley, Quite often, when actors have such a strong charisma in real life, eventually it has to affect the characters they play. For myself I’m not charismatic in that way. I’m not a “performer”. Ideally I would stay mute as River. That’s the reason why, for a long time, I’ve said the opposite of what I really thought. In interviews, I’ve also played characters that I wasn’t. I’ve lied and often contradicted myself to dumbfound people. It’s all over now, because I have nothing left to hide. Eventually, I’m quite an ordinary person."

i used to be painfully jealous of him

River Phoenix, Ethan Hawke and Jason Presson in Explorers - 1985

I was friends with River Phoenix, you know, and I used to be painfully jealous of him. Until a friend pointed out that him doing well doesn’t mean that you’re doing badly. And if he does badly, it doesn’t mean you’re doing better. It’s like that great Gore Vidal line, ‘Whenever a friend of mine succeeds, a small part of me dies.’

Ethan Hawke - 2008 - Interview - Guardian.co.uk

art was a religious-like calling

There was a very high value placed on the arts in my family. None of them were artists, but they loved books and movies and music. I grew up with people who believed that at its best art was a religious-like calling. I mean, my stepfather thought Bob Dylan was the greatest religious figure of the 20th century – and in a way he’s right, you know. They were also people who didn’t define success in financial terms and I think that’s had a very big influence on me.

telegraph - interview with john preston - june 2010