Quotes By John Hawkes

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

I met Robert Rodriguez working on a movie called 'Roadracers.'

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.

As an actor, I think a mistake that any storyteller can make is to play the ending.

Part of the way that I work is to observe.

Being a kid, as all kids do, you feel out of place or like kind of a freak. You wake up feeling like your head got put onto someone else's body that day.

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

As an actor you have to have a strong vivid imagination as you're working and when the camera's rolling, but there's certainly a part of you that is aware of real life, that you're making a movie.

I lived in Texas for 10 years.

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

I understand why people achieve a level of fame and disappear, I never understood it before, but it's an attractive prospect to walk away from it all.

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

As an actor, you don't often get a chance to know exactly the impact of what the audience is seeing, even though you can ask where the frame is. A move that feels tiny can be huge, and vice versa.

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.

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.

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.

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

When I realized that you can't necessarily be cast in a really great part living in Austin, even when Hollywood comes to town, I got a demo reel together and headed out west.

I generally play strong people and scary people.

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.

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'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.

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

If a musician wants to be an actor, everyone thinks that's pretty cool. But if an actor wants to play a song, even if they've been doing it for 40 years, that's bad news.

Starting in the mid-'80s, I played in a band called Meat Joy, and we made our own record, toured.

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.

There's a lot of skeletons in my closet!

My fear now is of cliche, of complacency, of not being able to feel authenticity in myself and those around me.

I don't mean to be highfalutin about it, but I try to limit my visibility.

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.