Top 35 John Hawkes Quotes

I don’t have actor training myself.

You don’t really ever think you’re that crazy person you’re playing.

I lived in Texas for 10 years.

When I over-prepare, I try to let it all go and forget all about it when the camera rolls, so I can just be present with the other actors and allow what’s going to happen to happen without too much preconception.

It’s probably odd for someone to read an interview where the interviewee is worried about exposure while they’re talking in an interview.

For the last 20 years of my life, I’ve had the mantra to do amazing parts with amazing people in amazing projects, so I’m attracted to good story, writing and character and good people. That’s what I’m always searching for and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.

A lot of times, you just don’t get the jobs you want to get.

It’s much more interesting to watch someone who is ill-equipped to solve their problem fight to solve their problem than wallow in the knowledge that they’re ill-equipped to solve their problems.

I generally play strong people and scary people.

When you’re just starting out, and someone you think is a real storyteller says something good about you, that helps.

Some friends of mine bothered me for a long time about getting on the social networking pages. They were close friends that I liked to mess with, and I think that I kind of enjoyed for a while that it bothered them so much. Now they’ve just kind of given up.

I want people to believe me when I play a part and they are less apt to if they know a lot about me and have associations about me.

I think that no matter how dark a person is, the more you learn about them, the more you understand about their life, the more you can sympathize with them or even root for them.

I think we’ve all been misled, at moments in our lives, certainly in school situations, and things like that, with getting with the wrong group briefly, or falling in with someone who we learn the truth about and no longer want to really be with.

You never really forget who you are. If you did, you’d need to seek some professional help.

I have to be careful of what TV shows I choose, particularly ones that have commercials in them, because it’s going to be a different kind of television show.

I’d said to my sweetheart a couple of days before that the SAG and Spirit Award nomination was amazing and I had no attachment to the Academy Award. I knew I was an underdog so I just decided to sleep through the announcement.

I don’t really try to judge any character that I play, afterwards I figure it out, but while I’m working on the character, I have to find something in them to relate to.

It’s hard to get concert tickets.

When something gets attention so quickly, people sometimes will look for reasons to find fault and tear it down.

It’s not like every director in every movie is seeking me out by any means, there are a lot of things I’m not suited for, a lot of things I’m not interested in, and a lot of things that directors wouldn’t be interested in me for.

Certainly I’ve had the experience of thinking a person was one thing, and finding out they were another.

People have said unkind things and you kind of have to, if you happen to read it, you have to just, you know, move on.

It’s tough being an actor making music, because even I have a knee-jerk reaction to that.

I’m just looking for the best story being told by the best people and the best part that I can find. If those things add up, I want to be a part of it whether it’s a studio film or, more likely in that instance, an independent film.

The only thing I do on a computer is play Texas Hold ‘Em, really. Obviously my cell phone is a computer. My car is a computer. I’m on computers every day without actively seeking them out.

Hitchhiking was such a pure form of existence. You’d wake up in the morning, and you’d have no idea what your day was going to be. And that’s something I’ve never been able to shake. I loved that.

I went to a performance of ‘The Crucible’ at the Guthrie when I was a sophomore in high school, and I knew right away that that’s what I wanted to do.

Part of the way that I work is to observe.

I maintain that if you’re a novelist and you go into an art museum, you’ll come out a better novelist. And if you paint a picture for an hour you’re a better actor at the end of it.

I don’t have any training as an actor, but I guess I’m an intense pretender. When you read something over and over, it gets into you a little bit. You can’t help but begin to feel it, even if you’re a healthy person as I think I am.

‘The New York Times’ thing… I think any actor would be thrilled to be profiled in that paper.

I guess you can say that every actor is a ‘character actor’ on some level. But I think some actors have a wider range. I think that’s how you get that mantle.

It’s nice to sometimes get things out of life, rather than stealing from other artists. I’m trying to steal from the real people.

Even the small amount of infamy I have makes me uncomfortable – on a personal level and on a professional level.