John Hawkes Quotes

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

There's a lot of skeletons in my closet!

I generally play strong people and scary people.

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

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

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.

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

I don't think there are in life, pure darkness or pure light. Everyone's got a little of everything.

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

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

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

For me and for I'm sure any actor, each role is a different challenge to prepare for in a different way.

I don't have actor training, myself.

If you're telling a story it's always best not to play the ending.

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

I think we're all mysteries to ourselves.

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.

It's hard to get concert tickets.

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

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

Part of the way that I work is to observe.

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

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.

I lived in Texas for 10 years. There were a lot of people chewing, including my dad.

The writer should always serve as his own angleworm —and the sharper the barb with which he fishes himself out of blackness, the better.

I've never had any delusions about being a leading man, and it's not sour grapes to say that in the best films that I've always enjoyed, the cliched leading man type isn't a part of the picture.

Motive is never easy. Sometimes it occurs to one only later.

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 do not feel an exile from America in any sense.

Really, I didn't like Alaska. It rained, almost every day, at least 300 days out of the year.

When we lived in Juneau, Alaska, it was a town of about 7,000 people, and totally isolated; the only way to get to it was by ship.

It's hard to tell whether the ship or airplane - they're all the same, I'm convinced - is male or female; it may shift back and forth.

To be anywhere near an enormous ocean liner when you are just like a fish in the water is frightening.

The only thing that exists is torment, lyricism, and the magnificence of language.

I had to go to Sunday school once or twice in my life, and that's where I commented someplace on hearing.

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

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.

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.