Before Ethan Hawke was the four-time Oscar-nominated performer and writer he is today, as a young up-and-comer The Lowdown star crossed paths with Robert Redford during an audition for his 1992 period drama A River Runs Through It. Sharing a fond memory of that first meeting on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the established screen actor called Redford, with whom he became friendly throughout the years, “one of the heroes of my life.”
The Blue Moon star paid tribute to both Redford and his good friend and collaborator, the late Paul Newman, citing both venerated performers as quintessential role models of what an “American man” should be like.
“Those are people that use their power, their privilege and their good fortune to empower other people,” he said, noting the duo imparted “a tremendous impact” on his life and pointing to their philanthropy and Redford’s founding of the Sundance Institute as the ways in which the two icons gave back to the world.
“When Before Sunrise came out, and nobody liked it, Robert Redford liked it,” he continued. “And he used it to open the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. He was a champion of other people and he understood how to use his power to empower others.”
But long before the two colleagues became friends, Hawke walked into Redford’s audition room for the rural Montana-set film, presumably to try out for the part that eventually went to Brad Pitt (who is seven years his senior), who co-starred in the tale of two diametrically opposed brothers alongside Craig Sheffer. Having spent all night prepping for the page-and-a-half-long speech he had to deliver, Hawke recounted arriving half an hour early to the meeting only to get in his head about meeting the prominent figure.
“My brain started to break,” he recalled, taking stock of the famous memorabilia Redford had hung up in his office, including the framed pistols from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the hat from Jeremiah Johnson.
“He goes, ‘So, you ready to read?’” Hawke said. “And I was like, ‘To be totally honest, sir, I think I’m starstruck. I’m not sure I can breathe right today, and if I could just have, like, 60 seconds to step out of the room and come back in again, I’ll be ready.”
However, Redford told him to come back again the next day: “I don’t want to come back tomorrow — homie I didn’t sleep all night! today I’ve got the same speech to come in [and perform],” Hawke explained, describing the process as “absolute torture.”
Ultimately, Hawke gave a solid audition, remembering: “I do the audition and he’s really cool. He looks at me and he goes, ‘You know, I’m an actor.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I know.’ He said, ‘I always give actors a second chance. I give ‘em some notes and I let ‘em try it one more time to see what they’re made of, but you nailed it. And you’re gonna have a great career, and you’re too young for this part, but it was a pleasure to meet you.’”
Though Hawke admitted he was “stunned,” he noted his gratitude in Redford saving him “weeks and weeks of worrying.” He added, “It hurt not to get the part and to know it immediately and to say it to my face, but it was the truth. And he also said something nice, right?”
A couple of months afterward, unbeknownst to Hawke until later, Redford found his way at the back of the house for an “Off-Off-Broadway” play in which the former was starring. “And, afterwards, he came backstage and said, ‘Good job, I tell you, keep doing what you’re doing, it’s gonna go great.’”
Though Hawke granted that Redford’s numerous accomplishments spoke for themselves, the Black Phone actor wanted to highlight “the kind of human being he was.”
He concluded, “It was a leadership in not just my life, but in my entire community’s life. And when you do the good that you have the power to do — that’s all any of us have to do. And I thought he led his life by example.”
movie the full episode below:
About the Author
