Ethan Hawke remembers knowing Society of Dead Poets Co-star Robin Williams’ mental health is struggling, saying “the end of his life doesn’t define his life for me.”
In a long interview with CBS Sunday morningIt’s Tracy Smith, the Bites of reality The star was asked if his view of the inimitable 1989 Peter Weir-directed boarding school drama had changed since Williams died by suicide aged 63 in 2014.
“It doesn’t fundamentally change the way I look at the film because, even at 18, I was aware of the complexity of his emotional life,” Hawke said. “I had a lot of depression in my family, and it was obvious to me that all this power and charisma came at a certain price. [He was] a deeply, deeply sensitive person, very sensitive to the energy of a room.
The four-time Oscar-nominated actor recalled a particular, brutal experience that contextualized the difference between Williams’ public persona and her inner life.
“I remember one time he was standing in line, and everyone was laughing and everyone was congratulating him, and I went to get a glass of water or a bagel or something, and I saw him hiding in a little corner, just hiding in the dark, by himself,” he said. “And I [go]’Oh okay.’ It actually makes a lot more sense to me now. It was a lot; it was trying. There are many stories about clowns and the happiness they give and at what cost.
THE Before sunrise The star concluded, “So I say all of this to say that the end of his life does not define his life for me. When I watch the film, I think of the spirit of the man that I knew during that time and how powerful he was and how well he weathered this storm of his own psyche for us and for others. I admire him enormously. There are no two of him.”
Written by Tom Schuman, this Academy Award-winning coming-of-age classic follows free-spirited teacher John Keating (Best Actor Oscar nominee Williams) as he returns in 1959 to a prestigious all-boys New England prep school, whose nonconformist approach to teaching poetry inspires his students to explore self-discovery.
Hawke is currently on an awards tour for her turn in the Richard Linklater film. Blue Moonhis ninth collaboration with the author, which follows the opening night of the 1943 musical Okay, Oklahoma! and marked an inflection point between the duo Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and Lorenz “Larry” Hart (Hawke), as the former embarks on a new professional chapter with collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney).
