ETHAN HAWKE CHARACTER DEVILISH DEEDS

Ethan Hawke couldn’t relate to his character’s devilishly bad behavior in Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead.

Part of an actor’s job is not to judge the person they are playing but Ethan Hawke’s character was so irreprehensible in Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead that he couldn’t imagine behaving that way in real life.

Knocking off your parent’s jewelry store and accidentally murdering your mother in the film is a tragedy that left him and co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays his brother physically and emotionally exhausted.

“This movie is a Greek tragedy. I can’t begin to know how I would feel if I accidentally killed my mother and it was not really an accident. It’s really hard to imagine how you would handle that day. And that’s what Phil’s and my job is, it’s kinda fun. As much as I did like working with Phil and Sidney Lumet, I was just thrilled when this job was over. It was just so emotional. Phil and I were so stressed out all the time.”

Ethan found one redeeming quality in the film in that it shows the true desperation of what it’s like to need money.

“One of the things I really like about the movie is in contemporary movies you almost never see people really struggle for money in a middle class way. You can see people in the famine stricken kind of epic tale or something like that but people who could really, really use $1,000 so badly that they would risk everything for. We’re just inundated with all these images of everybody’s rich so that’s what I like about the characters.”

During the robbery scene Ethan dons a disguise consisting of a dark haired wig, mustache and glasses which is quite different from the fangs and yellow eyes he wore playing a vampire in the upcoming film Daybreakers. He is currently directing the play Things We Want opening in New York November 7th.