Best Of: Ethan Hawke / Tim Robbins

Summary

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Fresh Air: Best Of Ethan Hawke / Tim Robbins

Podcast: Fresh Air (WHYY/NPR)
Hosts: Terry Gross, Tonya Mosley
Date: November 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

This “Best Of” episode of Fresh Air features two engaging interviews. First, Terry Gross speaks with actor/writer/director Ethan Hawke about his new projects—the film Blue Moon and the streaming series The Lowdown. Hawke offers deep insights into his process, the emotional complexity of his characters, and the evolution of his career. Later, Tonya Mosley interviews Tim Robbins, Oscar-winning actor/director and founder of the Actors Gang, about his play Topsy Turvy, the healing power of live theater, and how decades in the arts have shaped his worldview.

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Ethan Hawke: Art, Aging, and Playing Against Type

[02:15–25:48] Key Discussion Points

1. Portraying Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon

• Hawke stars as lyricist Lorenz Hart, wrestling with professional rejection and personal pain on the opening night of Oklahoma!.

• The role required Hawke to embody intense emotional contradictions, such as being both “incredibly jealous and incredibly happy,” and navigating issues of self-loathing, pride, and identity.

• The character’s complexity was a stretch, even for a seasoned actor:

  • “Every now and then you bump up against a part that presses you to the wall of your ability. And you know you can never be as good as the part is demanding of you.” —Ethan Hawke [05:53]

• On disappearing into the role:

  • Linklater, as director, pushed Hawke beyond his usual bag of tricks: “He just wanted me to be Larry Hart... He would say, ‘I saw you, I saw you, I saw you.’” —Ethan Hawke [07:06]
  • Hawke describes learning about the subtle dynamics of power, sexuality, and self-worth while literally becoming physically shorter for the part.

2. Reflections on Self-Destructive Artists

• Hawke draws on his experiences working with and losing friends like River Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

• He sees addiction as rooted in pain and sensitivity, often found in artists.

  • “Half of why I act sometimes is to impress those two men that I was friends with... They were the gauge by which I judged myself.” —Ethan Hawke [16:16]

• Hawke acknowledges the randomness and fragility of life, expressing ongoing grief and curiosity about what his late friends might have become.

3. The Passage of Time and the Actor’s Life

• Hawke discusses how his collaborations with Richard Linklater (Boyhood, the Before trilogy) have shaped his understanding of time, both personally and artistically.
  • “I often think Father Time is the main character of all the films we've done together.” —Ethan Hawke [19:12]
  • On getting older: “I’m very aware of how much of the road has already been walked... And I don’t like wasting time anymore.” —Ethan Hawke [20:03]

4. The Genre-Bending Series The Lowdown

• Hawke’s character, Lee, is an eccentric investigative journalist—a “truthstorian”—who explores corruption in Tulsa.
• The series is part homage, part satire of noir:
  • “He’s Quixote chasing windmills, running into propellers. He's a dreamer and an idealist and self centered and doesn’t see his own blind spots. And he’s a moron. And I just completely relate to him.” —Ethan Hawke [24:35]
• Hawke relishes the freedom and humor in playing Lee, noting the contrast with his more transformative turn in Blue Moon.

Memorable Quotes

• “The world is so stupid in the way that it imagines power and intelligence and grace...” —Ethan Hawke on playing someone short [08:49]
• “Acting forces you to be aware of time. Cinema naturally does it.” —Ethan Hawke [19:20]

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Tim Robbins: Theater as Healing & Resistance

[35:39–51:25] Key Discussion Points

1. Art, Lockdown, and Human Complexity

• Robbins’ new play Topsy Turvy uses a chorus who loses its harmony during pandemic-induced isolation as a metaphor for societal division.

• The lockdown forced Robbins to reevaluate his beliefs and highlighted the enduring power of collective art:

  • “Things that I had held sacred or had held as truths were challenged during that time. And what it made me do was... question what my beliefs are. And I think that’s a very healthy thing.” —Tim Robbins [35:44]

• Robbins draws direct inspiration from Greek theater, which used the chorus as society’s voice in dialogue with transformative, often traumatic, events.

2. Devotion to Theater over Hollywood

• Despite film/TV offers, Robbins prioritizes small theater for its creative autonomy and power:
  • “I have complete freedom. And I’ve always, from the very start, held that to be the most important thing.” —Tim Robbins [39:53]
• The Actors Gang, his LA-based company, was founded by a group of “punk rock infused” actors who valued experimentation above prestige.

3. Roots in Street Theater and Transformative Experiences

• Robbins recounts acting in street theater as a twelve-year-old in New York, where raw audience reactions shaped his craft.
  • “Most of these people are seeing theater for the very first time... there was an awful lot of talking back, call and response.” —Tim Robbins [44:10]
• He draws a line from this to the commedia dell’arte tradition: “They were telling stories that were absolutely relevant to the world around them at the time.” —Tim Robbins [45:20]
• Robbins sees theater’s real-time potential for transformation as fundamentally different from—and more powerful than—film:
  • “Theater… can actually transform a consciousness. It can change an opinion. It can illuminate a truth in an immediate way, not in a manipulative way. Because film can be very manipulative.” —Tim Robbins [46:37]

4. The Enduring Power of Shawshank Redemption

• Robbins reflects on the film’s surprising, lasting impact:
  • “It’s a movie about a real friendship between two men, a love story in a lot of ways.” —Tim Robbins [49:13]
  • “When people come up to me and talk about that film... it’s that film changed me. That film made me think in a different way. Not to mention the times... that movie means to those that have been incarcerated is profound.” —Tim Robbins [50:12]
• He credits the story’s universal message of hope and fierce friendship as key reasons why it endures.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Ethan Hawke on addiction/loss:
  “Half of why I act sometimes is to impress those two men... They were the gauge by which I judged myself.” [16:16]
• Ethan Hawke on time:
  "I often think Father Time is the main character of all the films we've done together." [19:12]
• Tim Robbins on the role of theater:
  "I know that as a child, when I saw something transformative, something that blew my mind, I can still remember those plays... That's the power that theater has. It can actually transform a consciousness." [46:38]
• Tim Robbins on hope in Shawshank:
  "I think that prison can be a metaphor for other things in life... the idea that Andy had the long plan and could see a future that was brighter, I think that's something that people want to believe in." [48:26]

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------| | 02:15 | Terry Gross interviews Ethan Hawke | | 03:29 | Clip from Blue Moon | | 05:53 | Hawke discusses challenges of playing Lorenz Hart | | 12:29 | Reflections on loss (River Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman) | | 18:00 | On how Boyhood and Linklater collaborations changed Hawke’s view of time | | 21:17 | On aging as an actor | | 22:45 | Clip and discussion from The Lowdown | | 24:32 | Hawke on playing Lee in The Lowdown | | 35:39 | Tonya Mosley interviews Tim Robbins | | 39:57 | Robbins on creative freedom in theater | | 42:25 | Recollections of street theater as a youth | | 46:37 | Theater’s ability to transform vs. film | | 48:26 | Shawshank Redemption’s lasting resonance | | 49:13 | Male friendship theme in Shawshank | | 50:12 | Robbins on audience reactions and prison work |

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Tone & Language

Both Hawke and Robbins speak with candidness, warmth, and thoughtful intensity. Hawke brings a searching, self-deprecating humor, especially when reflecting on aging and the demands of his craft. Robbins’ tone is deeply earnest, at times philosophical, and foregrounds his lifelong commitment to theater as a site for societal reckoning and transformation.

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Summary Takeaways

• Hawke reveals how his artistry is shaped by collaboration, self-examination, and a deep sensitivity to loss and change.
• Robbins champions theater’s power for real-world healing, social connection, and personal growth, contrasting it with Hollywood’s limitations.
• Both see storytelling—in any medium—as a tool for genuine transformation, whether in individuals or communities.

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Transcript

[Announcer]

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[Tanya Moseley]

From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is FRESH AIR WEEKEND. I'm Tonya Moseley. Today, Ethan Hawke. He stars in the new movie Blue Moon, about lyricist Loren's heart and half of the Broadway duo Rogers and Hart. Hawke also appears in the new streaming series the lowdown. Now 55, he's been making movies since he was 13, and sometimes he says he forgets just how old he is.

[Ethan Hawke]

Now I'll be sent a script and it says, Billy, age 19, skateboarding down the street. And I always think, oh, that's my part. It takes me a while to realize, oh, Billy's father, age 55, gruff and weathered around the edges. I'm like, oh, that's me.

[Tanya Moseley]

Also, we hear from actor and director Tim Robbins. He reflects on 30 years of making films and why he believes live theater can sometimes speak to us in more profound ways than film can.

[Tim Robbins]

I know that as a child when I saw something transformative, something that blew my mind, I can still remember those plays. That's the power that theater has. It can actually transform a consciousness.

[Tanya Moseley]

That's coming up on FRESH AIR weekend.

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[Tanya Moseley]

This is FRESH AIR WEEKEND. I'm Tonya Moseley. Here's Terri with our first interview.

[Terry Gross]

My guest, Ethan Hawke, stars in two new movies. In Blue Moon, he plays lyricist Lorenz Hart in the horror film Black Phone 2. He's a serial killer who dies and becomes a spirit, and he haunts people's dreams. Let's start with a clip from Blue Moon, directed by Richard Linklater. It's set on the night of the opening of Oklahoma, the First musical that Hart's longtime songwriting partner, Richard Rogers wrote with another lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein. There's an after party at Sardi's where theater people would go on opening night and wait till the reviews came out. Hart gets there first and talks with the bartender, feeling he's become insignificant because he was abandoned by Rogers. And he's complaining about how false and sentimental Oklahoma is. Rogers had moved on because Hart had been drinking too much and was no longer a reliable partner. Hart claims to have become sober, but he ends up drinking a lot at Sardi's. In this scene, after Rogers arrives, he talks with Hart. Hart's trying to convince Rogers to collaborate on a satirical musical a about Marco Polo. Rogers is played by Andrew Scott. Ethan Hawke, as Hart speaks first.

[Ethan Hawke]

I mean, Marco Polo's gonna be a show about joy, but a hard earned joy, an unsentimental joy. Something wrong with sentimental when it's too easy. Oklahoma's too easy. The guy actually getting the girl in the end is too easy. You've just eliminated every successful musical comedy ever written, Larry. It's too easy for me. Did you hear the audience tonight? Yes. 1600 people didn't think it was too easy. You tell me 1600 people are wrong? I'm just saying you and I can do something so much more emotionally complicated. We don't have to pander to what.

[Tim Robbins]

I was going to. Pandering?

[Ethan Hawke]

No, I think I love Berlin. White Christmas is Panda. Well, I don't believe White Christmas. Well, maybe audiences have changed. Well, they still want to laugh. They want to laugh, but not in that way. In what way?

[Tim Robbins]

In your way.

[Ethan Hawke]

They want to laugh, but they also want to cry a little. They want to feel.

[Terry Gross]

Ethan Hawke. Welcome to Fresh Air. And congratulations on all the new work you've been doing. I've been really enjoying it. You said that Making Blue Moon stretched you and the director, Richard Linklater, to like, the. The boundaries of your abilities. What made it so hard for you and so different?

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, first off, I guess the emotional complexity. I mean, there's the verbiage. Larry Hart is at this opening night party and it's kind of like he feels if he ever stops talking, he's going to be shot and killed. And so he just cannot stop talking. So there was the amount of text I had to learn, but then the. There's the complication. He's incredibly. What is it? It's called the correlation of opposites. He's two things simultaneously all the time. He is incredibly jealous and he's incredibly happy and proud of his friend. He's gay and in love with a woman. He's the most diminutive, smallest person in the room, and he's the biggest personality in the room. The whole experience of making it, I felt I was being asked to play two things at the same time, which is of course why I want to do it. It was wonderful and it was like the way real people are, but it's. It's challenging. Every now and then you, you do, you bump up against a part that presses you to the wall of your ability. And you know you can never be as good as the part is demanding of you. And that's a kind of thrilling spot to be in.

[Terry Gross]

So you're playing someone who thinks that their height, their hair, makes them really ugly and unappealing. Plus he's gay and he has to hide that from the public.

[Ethan Hawke]

The book was illegal in 1943. He does have to hide it.

[Terry Gross]

No, absolutely. Right, right. So in a way, talking all the time is a distraction from all the things that he thinks are unappealing about him. And he's also very short. I think he's like five feet or under. You're pretty tall and you had to have a comb over for it, which is literally not attractive. So you had to feel very much not like yourself.

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, it was interesting. I was being directed by a man who's directed me, and this is our ninth film collaboration. So he knows every trick in my toolbox. And he was really asking me to disappear. That was he. He wanted. He just wanted me to be Larry Hart. And so the man has spent years of his life editing my performances. So anytime he would see me, he would say, I saw you, I saw you, I saw you.

[Terry Gross]

And he was, I saw you, Ethan Hawke, and not Larry Hart, and not Larry.

[Ethan Hawke]

And so the physical things are kind of, you know, they're kind of easy, they're superficial ultimately, if they don't unlock the soul of the man. Right. Anybody can shave their head and do a comb over, but it was really the soul of a person who is loathing themselves and at the same time thinks they're smarter than everybody else. And his intellect is his only power, his pride in his work is his only self worth, and that is being stripped from him on this night. I mean, imagine if you only worked with one other person for 25 years and you achieved incredible heights and this person now doesn't want to work with you anymore. So it's truly heartbreaking for him because I think he's smart enough to know that the World is changing. We're in the middle of the war. The Jazz Age is being left behind. Something new is happening and he's not going to be a part of it. And he feels a titanic plate shifting and he's being sent away to Antarctica or something. I mean, that's what I think he feels.

[Terry Gross]

So I'm under 5ft tall and I might be shorter than he was. So how did playing somebody short and having to look up at people, what did you learn about my life at my height?

[Ethan Hawke]

The world is so stupid in the way that it imagines power and intelligence and grace and, you know, tall and handsome, tall equating power, tall equating authority. It doesn't. Beauty is as beauty does. We all know this. It was as a male, I think it's even more different because I remember there was a man who was really helping me with the height and how to achieve it. We were kind of trying to do it with old school stagecraft. And he had built a floor that he could put his feet through and then wear his shoes on his shins. So he really appeared a foot shorter than he did. And his wife, who they'd been together for decades, came to him and was looking at him and she's like, wow, if you were this tall, I wouldn't love you. And it was really a heartbreaking experience for him that he really wanted to share with me. That confused him deeply about how what we associate as sexuality, what we associate with strength. And it did unlock for me, I mean, just even all my normal ways of flirting. I have all these scenes with Margaret Qualley, who's a beautiful young woman, and she would just giggle at everything I say and pat me on top of the head. And it was extremely patronizing. And you had to find a different set of tools to get her attention. So I don't know that I could speak intelligently about it, but I could feel it in my guts.

[Terry Gross]

Mm.

[Tanya Moseley]

We're listening to Terry's interview with Ethan Hawke, who stars in the new movie Blue Moon about lyricist Lauren's heart and also stars in the new streaming series the Low Down. We'll hear more of their conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Moseley, and this is FRESH AIR Weekend. This week on Consider this an encrypted group chat where members of the National Guard are processing President Trump's actions.

[Ethan Hawke]

This is just not what any of us signed up for. And I just wonder, like, who's gonna stand up to this?

[Tanya Moseley]

Plus, what's next for congressional Democrats after their move this week to release more of Jeffrey Epstein's emails. Listen this week to consider this on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Terry Gross]

Hi, it's Terry Gross. If you'd like Fresh Air interview collections with filmmakers or comics or musicians or staff favorites and more, sign up for Fresh Air Plus. It will make those car rides, meal prep and the treadmill more entertaining and you'll daily Fresh Air podcast episodes ad free. Learn more and sign [e-mail] this message comes from Cachava.

[Ethan Hawke]

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[Terry Gross]

So you've played at least two brilliant but self destructive artists. Chet Baker, the great jazz trumpeter and singer who had several addictions, and Larry Hart, who died of complications from drinking way too much. It's not uncommon for talented artists. Oh, and River Phoenix, who you work with, died of an overdose.

[Ethan Hawke]

Philip Seymour Hoffman.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yes, right. It's not uncommon for talented artists to have a self destructive side or a need for the kind of medication that they believe, you know, the addiction provides for. Do you feel like you understand why those two things so often go together?

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, first off, I think issues of addiction are complicating and destroying so much of society and so many people are in pain and these are painkillers. And I think the artistic community to be driven to create usually is motivated by some sensitivity and extreme sensitivity. I don't know. I have seen it my whole life. You mentioned river and that was extremely complex and upsetting thing that happened in my early 20s. His passing and then middle age brings its own demons, which happened to my friend Phil. And it's I think part of my collaboration with Rick and part of why I love working with Richard Linklater is he has so much joy in his life and he didn't when I was young and becoming friends with him. He was one of the first artists I met who really didn't see self destruction as a romantic well to draw from. He had so much joy and love of life. But I do enjoy playing these parts because I do understand it. I grew up with so many men of the theater who were in so much pain. And they were some of the most ferociously intelligent and kind and good people that were full of so much self loathing. And when I first read the script, I just. I was desperate to play this guy.

[Terry Gross]

Who, Larry Hart?

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

So River Phoenix, you made your first movie with him, the Explorers. So he died at age 23 in 1993 of an OD of morphine and cocaine. Was that a warning for you? You know, like, touch this stuff? Were you ever seduced by the relief of addictive drugs?

[Ethan Hawke]

I don't know. What flashes through my mind is when river and I were doing the Explorers. We both were. We both loved James Dean. James Dean smoked Camel unfiltered cigarettes and we thought it would be cool to go out. And we stole a pack of cam on filters and went out in this field and smoked three of them. And river turned green and he vomited. And when he passed, I thought about that moment that we all have different bodies and some of us can press the limit and our bodies can handle it and we can learn from it and some of us turn green. And river was very sensitive, extremely sensitive. And it's part of his genius. I don't know, does that make sense to you? What I'm trying to communicate? And some of us get second chances and some of us, our DNA is hardwired to protect ourselves. And some people don't have those guardrails. And I don't understand it. And I know that the answer is you have to know yourself. And yes to your question, was it a warning? Of course it was a warning. But we all get warnings. And I sometimes think a lot of it is accident. And I wish I remember when we were 23, I felt that we had lived. And now here I am. And I've lived twice as long as River. River didn't get to be a dad. And river didn't get to have the experiences of the roller coaster ride, of the ups and downs of a profession. I almost feel sadder about his death now because I'd love. I would love to see him. I'd love to see what he thinks now. He was such a political young man and he was such an idealist. I would love to see what that looked like at 55. And I would love to see the artist that he would be and the art he would have made. I can't believe that Phil's gone. Half of why I act sometimes is to impress those two men that I was friends with. You know, I mean, I. I think about them all the time when I'm performing. Because they were the gauge by which I judged myself. And they still are.

[Terry Gross]

I want to ask you about time. The film Boyhood was shot, directed by Richard Linklater, who just directed you'd. In Blue Moon. It was shot over 12 years. And as this family aged, as the children and the divorced parents. Parents aged, the actors aged. So that was a long term commitment. Blue Moon takes place on one evening. It's practically shot in real time. So making movies that play with time like that, especially boyhood, over 12 years. I'm wondering if that has shaped your understanding of time, what time means to you.

[Ethan Hawke]

It has so much. And you're not even mentioning the before trilogy, which is.

[Terry Gross]

Right.

[Ethan Hawke]

18 years.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And each movie was separated by a few years.

[Ethan Hawke]

Nine years.

[Tim Robbins]

Yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

I think it's part of the hook of Linkletter and I's friendship. As we both have a obsession with it. Think about it all the time. All the time. It's omnipresent in our awareness. And I think that acting. Dead Poets Society came out and I started being sent scripts. I'm 18, 19 years old. And now I'll be sent a script. And it says, Billy, age 19, skateboarding down the street. And I always think, oh, that's my part. It's just the way I read script. It takes me a while to realize, oh, Billy's father, age 55, gruff and weathered around the edges. I'm like, oh, that's me. I'm forced always to look at that. I remember watching the first screening of Boyhood with Patricia Arquette. And I were sitting next to each other and she.

[Terry Gross]

And she co stars with you.

[Justin Chang]

Yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

And she leans over to me and says, wow, they're growing up and we're aging. And it's funny, I don't know where that turn happens where we stop thinking of ourselves as growing. But acting forces you to be aware of time. Cinema naturally does it. The stories I gravitate to, particularly in the films with Richard Linklater, seem to be. I often think Father Time is the main character of all the films we've done together.

[Terry Gross]

So how is getting older affecting your relationship with the passage of time?

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, you're just hitting me with some real lightweight questions.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, you're welcome.

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, it's arresting for anybody, you know, I think when you get over the age of 50, it is. I feel it very powerfully. I feel a desire to work. I don't know if you feel that, but I feel I'm aware of how much of the road has already been walked. And I'm very conscious of. I find myself often thinking, how old was Jeff Bridges when he did True Grit? Am I older than him now? Am I younger than him? How old was Peter Weir when he directed Dead Poets Society? I'm older than he was now. I thought he was an old man. I'm very aware of any how many more years I might have to contribute. And I don't like wasting time anymore. I'm very aware of how many people mentored me and cared for me. And am I doing that for others? Am I meeting my responsibilities as a citizen? Those questions are on my mind all the time. Then there's this other voice which is, am I enjoying my life? Because I do want to enjoy it too. And how much of this work that I'm obsessed with is eroding my sense of play and joy and spontaneity and living and being in the moment. And it is strange, the older you get. I have no awareness of wisdom. I only have awareness of how many things I thought I understood that I don't understand. And more questions come in the door.

[Terry Gross]

I want to talk with you about the lowdown. I'm really enjoying this. And you play an investigative journalist for a kind of underground paper. I can't remember whether you correct the person, whether he says, it's a magazine.

[Ethan Hawke]

Long magazine. Long form magazine, yeah.

[Terry Gross]

He calls it a paper. And you say, no, it's a long form magazine. And you are very, very eccentric. You investigate power and corruption in Tulsa, where this is set. And you also break all the rules of journalism. You get beaten up a lot. And unlike the tough guys in a lot of hard boiled film noir and in novels, when you get beaten up, you hurt and you're crying out in pain.

[Ethan Hawke]

I cry, yeah.

[Terry Gross]

So I want to play a short scene. This is toward the beginning of the first episode. So you're investigating a powerful wealthy guy who runs an investment company, has been buying up a lot of black owned businesses. And you're wondering, like, what's this about? Tracy Letts play as that guy. You've walked into his office dressed way too casually for a meeting like this. And you start looking around the room, picking up things, examining them, sniffing the carafe of brandy and being intentionally sarcastic and rude. So let's pick it up with the clip.

[Tim Robbins]

Nice to meet you in person.

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah, we do have a lot of other business. Yes, I'm sure you do. This place is so fancy. I never even been back here.

[Tim Robbins]

Yeah, just some of the perks. Yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

I should have gone in the investment firm business, huh? Instead of rare books.

[Tim Robbins]

But you are a journalist too, though, right? Or some kind of writer?

[Ethan Hawke]

I'm a truthstorian.

[Tim Robbins]

Sorry, say again?

[Ethan Hawke]

I am a Tulsa True story.

[Tim Robbins]

A truth storian. What exactly is a Trustorian?

[Ethan Hawke]

I'm glad you asked. I read stuff, I research stuff, I drive around and I find stuff, and then I write about stuff. Some people care, some people don't. I'm chronically unemployed, always broke, but let's just say that I am am obsessed with the truth.

[Tim Robbins]

How about that?

[Terry Gross]

So, Ethan Hawke. The series is inspired by film noir, but it's also kind of a satire of the genre. Your character talks tough, but as I said, gets beaten up a lot. Are you a fan of noir novels? You know, hard boiled novels or film noir?

[Ethan Hawke]

I am. I love it. I mean, I'll never forget the first time I saw Chinatown or the Long Goodbye or the Big Lebowski for that matter, or some of the other Philip Marlowe, Bogart, you know, I love all that stuff. And, you know, one of the things I love about genre films is you can use the genre to be entertaining and you can fill the story up with substance and message and ideas, but it's still entertaining because you're inside the genre.

[Terry Gross]

So what was your take on this character? Like, what did you model him on?

[Ethan Hawke]

I loved this character. It's been a funny year for me because Blue Moon is probably the most different I've ever pushed myself outside the framework of my own identity. And then the lowdown is I just. I just relate to Lee. He's Quixote chasing windmills, running into propellers. He's a dreamer and an idealist and self centered and doesn't see his own blind spots. And he's a moron. And I just completely relate to him. And he can say the right thing all the time and do the wrong thing all the time. And out of that, obviously comes a lot of humor. I kind of saw Lee as a guy who's frozen in 1996 or something. I'm still wearing the same pants I wore back then. I got the same belt buckle I wore back then. He still listened to the same music he listened to back then. And I admire him. And I also identify with his shortcuts. And Sterling is really fun to work with. I had a great time on Reservation Dogs. We got along like a house on fire. And I can't remember a time I just ran with the character like I did with this one.

[Terry Gross]

Ethan Hawke. It's just been great to talk with you. Thank you so much. And again, congratulations on all the work you've been doing.

[Ethan Hawke]

Thanks.

[Terry Gross]

So many good things.

[Ethan Hawke]

I'm tired after all the questions you asked me. I love your show and I love NPR and I really appreciate what you guys do and I'm just thrilled to be on your program. So thanks for having me.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, thank you for saying that. It's so great. Great to have you.

[Tanya Moseley]

Actor Ethan Hawke speaking with Terry Gross. He stars in the new movie Blue Moon, about lyricist Lauren's Hart, and also stars in the new streaming series the Lowdown. Four years after their Oscar nominated comedy the Worst Person in the World, the Danish born Norwegian director Joachim Trier and actor Renata Reidsvey are together on a new drama, Sentimental Value. The movie, which also features Stellan Skarsgrd and Elle Fanning, won the Grand Prix at this year's Cannes Film Festival and will represent Norway in this year's Oscar race for Best International Feature. Our film critic Justin Chang has this.

[Justin Chang]

Review Few filmmakers are as attuned as Joachim Trier to the inner lives of young people. In superb movies like reprise, Oslo, Aug 31 and the worst Person in the World, he has probed the artistic dreams and frustrated desires of characters, trying and often failing to figure out who they are. Trier's thoughtfulness is apparent even in his more middling films like the Jesse Eisenberg drama Louder Than Bombs and the supernatural thriller Thelma, both of which were keyed in to the profound ways our families can mess us up. Complicated parent child relationships are also at the heart of Sentimental Value, a new drama that many have hailed as Trier's best movie to date. But I've seen the film twice now, and although it's thoughtfully crafted and well acted, it strikes me as one of Trier's lesser efforts, the kind of lofty, self consciously mature work that often gets more praise than its richer, livelier predecessors. Renate Reinsveh, the radiant star of the Worst Person in the World, here, plays Nora, an accomplished stage actor whose mother has recently died. As she grieves with her younger sister Agnes, wonderfully played by Inga Ibsdotter Lilias, Nora must deal with the return of their long estranged father, Gustav, played by Stellan Skarsgard. Gustav, a film director of some note, abandoned the family when the girls were still young. Now, years later, he surprises Nora by presenting her with a new script and asking her to play the lead role. Nora turns him down, and so Gustav casts a Hollywood star, Rachel Kemp, played by Elle Fanning. Gustav's movie is being financed by Netflix, which allows Trier to introduce some delectable film industry satire. Rachel is game and loves Gustav's work, but she's clearly ill at ease with the material, partly because she isn't Norwegian and partly because the character seems based on Gustav's mother, who died tragically when he was just a boy. In this scene, Rachel meets with Nora, hoping to gain more insight into not only the role, but also Gustav's family dynamics.

[Elle Fanning]

Why didn't you want to do the role? I can't work with him.

[Terry Gross]

Why?

[Ethan Hawke]

We can't really talk.

[Elle Fanning]

But he wanted you to do it?

[Announcer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

I don't know.

[Elle Fanning]

I just can't. I can't get a handle on her, you know? The more that I study her, the more lost I feel trying to be her. It's like her sadness is. It's such an overwhelming part of her.

[Justin Chang]

In this scene and many others, Trier directs us to pay attention to his actors shifting expressions and silences, all the pointed things they leave unsaid. When Nora has an unexplained attack of stage fright on the opening night of her play, we wonder if it's rooted in a certain ambivalence about acting, a profession that connects her to her father, whether she likes it or not. Agnes and Gustav get along better, possibly because she starred in one of his films when she was a young girl, a brief bonding experience that her sister never had. Gustav, it seems, is the kind of father who can only parent through a camera lens. It's bittersweet that he treats Rachel with a paternal warmth that he seldom shows his own daughters. In the uniformly strong cast, I liked Fanning the best. Her character has a bracing and very American directness that cuts through all the wry Nordic reserve. Trier clearly respects the audience's intelligence, which earns our respect in return. But for every sensitive, perceptive moment in Sentimental Value, there's another that feels coy, even complacent. Trier and his regular co writer, Esquil Vogt, seem strangely incurious about their characters art. I wanted to see more of Nora's acting and to hear more of Gustav's script. In lieu of this, the movie floats a lot of whispery notions about how art and life converge. Even when artists turn out to be lousy parents, it suggests art itself can be a vessel for reconciliation and healing. This idea is not exactly the stuff of revelation, and the movie basically rubber stamps it without developing or dramatizing it anew. A big part of the story involves the beloved family house where Nora and Agnes grew up and which Gustav wants to use as the shooting location for his new film. We're meant to see that our homes become repositories of memory, filled with the ghosts of generations past. But there's something a little precious about these themes, just as there's something pat and predictable about the way the drama resolves in building toward a redemptive ending. Sentimental value lets everyone off the hook too easily, especially Gustav. You can't blame Skarsgrd, who plays the role with his typically irresistible, irascible charm. But it's hard not to feel that Trier, in indulging this character, is favoring the priorities of art over the tougher questions of life.

[Tanya Moseley]

Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. Coming up, we hear from Academy Award winning actor and director Tim Robbins. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR weekend.

[Announcer]

You ever get to the pharmacy and you're expecting your medication to cost 20.

[Ethan Hawke]

Bucks, but instead it's 200 or 1,000 and you're like, wait, really? Like, are you sure? Is there some kind of mistake?

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This week on the Life Kit podcast, what to do when youn Prescription Costs.

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Hi, it's Terry. Our co host. Tanya Mosley and I will be doing an end of the year FRESH AIR plus bonus episode answering listener questions about the show and about ourselves. You can send the questions now to fresh airpluspr.org with plus spelled out. That's fresh airpluspr.org.

[Tanya Moseley]

This week on the NPR Politics podcast, the latest on Democrats in some blue states. Redistricting a lot is still uncertain, but.

[Ethan Hawke]

The picture moving into the midterms for.

[Announcer]

Democrats isn't looking as bad as it once did.

[Tanya Moseley]

Plus, the government shutdown is over. What's Congress focused on next? That and more daily political coverage on the NPR Politics podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Tim Robbins, Academy Award winning actor, director and founder of the Actors Gang, a theater company he started in Los angeles back in 1981 with a group of fellow UCLA students. We sat down in October in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, after a live performance of his new play Topsy Turvy at the Kohler Arts Center. Sheboygan itself is a small lakeside city right next to Kohler, a place with a rich art scene. The performance was part of the city's first film festival, which wrapped with a 30th anniversary screening of Dead Man Walking, the second film Robbins directed. Topsy Turvy is about a chorus that's lost its ability to sing together after the pandemic's long isolation, a metaphor that hits uncomfortably close to home for many. And in a way, it connects to what Robbins has explored for more than 40 impossible reconciliations between people with opposing beliefs, between guilt and redemption, between isolation and connection. From the Shawshank Redemption to Bob Roberts to his prison theater work with the Actors Gang, he circles around one question. How do we find harmony when we've forgotten how to listen? Robbins and I talked about why he's taking an experimental play on the road instead of making another prestige TV show. And I asked him about how the COVID lockdown and the isolation that followed affected him. Here's our conversation.

[Tim Robbins]

Well, in many ways, the lockdown was illuminating to me. Things that I had held sacred or had held as truths were challenged during that time. And what it made me do was it made me question myself and question what my beliefs are. And I think that's a very healthy thing. As a writer, I need to do that all the time. As an actor, I have to do that. So drama is about finding the complexities and the conflicts that we all have within ourselves. I think that's the way to approach these discussions about society at large. When you're dealing with them in a play or in a movie, you have to give respect to the other side.

[Elle Fanning]

So for your writing process, how does the idea of the chorus, because Topsy Turvy, they're a chorus, this collective voice, help us think about the division? What was it about that particular way of being able to tell the story that you felt was a way to be able to get at that division.

[Tim Robbins]

So just a reminder that in Greek theater, which was kind of the start of what we think of as Western theater, the purpose of these plays that they did, both comedies and dramas, were to involve the citizenry in a dialogue with the gods. So the citizenry in those plays were represented by the chorus. And the chorus would have a big dilemma. And the dilemma usually had some something to do with something that had happened recently in Athens or in Greece. And what we were seeing on stage was a way for the society to look at what had just happened and be able to explore that, ask questions about it, and see the story told through the dialogue between the chorus and the. The gods. And I felt the subject matter of those plays, recent wars that had taken a lot of lives, plagues, different conflicts within the societies. I felt that this was such a unique and extraordinary time that we were living in, that it was up at that level of Greek tragedy and Greek comedy. The degree to which this whole world locked down. This has never happened in human history before, the coordinated locking down of societies throughout the world. You know, I was, I was, you know, as I was seeing this develop, I was like, there's got to be one country that just says, we're not doing this. And I just was blown away that it had this kind of coordinated unanimity. And that scared me a little bit. And I was like, well, what is this really about? What is this about? And so those questions led me to ask those questions in the play. Using the chorus as a means to figure out these people who lovely singing together at the beginning of the play. They sound beautiful. And then they. They are told they have to separate. And so how does a chorus harmonize when they are kept from each other?

[Elle Fanning]

I'm just curious, Tim. I mean, you're an Oscar winner. You can do anything. You could be in movies, you've done prestige television. What is it about playing in hundred seat theaters and devoting your time to it? What do you think it is about the theater to be able to articulate the story that you're telling in Topsy Turvy that can't really be told anywhere else?

[Tim Robbins]

I have complete freedom. And I've always, from the very start, held that to be the most important thing. We started the Actors gang out of UCLA in 1982.

[Tanya Moseley]

And when you say we, I'm talking.

[Tim Robbins]

About about eight or nine young punk rock infused actors that just wanted to make some noise and have fun and tell stories. And we did this play called Ubu wa Ubu the King. This was the first play we did. And we did it in this dark street in Hollywood at midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. And it was a big success. And it told us that we have this great opportunity and we started doing other plays. But then I started, right around the same time I started getting work. And I had financed Ubu the King on my salary from delivering pizzas in Beverly Hills. If you're going to deliver pizzas, by.

[Elle Fanning]

The way, that's the place.

[Tim Robbins]

That's the place.

[Elle Fanning]

Good tips.

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah, good tips.

[Tim Robbins]

And so then I started working and I realized, oh, well, I can, I can fund the next play with this one. One paycheck, right? And so I started this kind of dance and my agents hated it because they're trying to build momentum. And I would say to them, well, I'm happy to Work through this time. But then I'm going to do a play and they're like, oh, Broadway. I'm like, no, no, I've got this theater company and we're going to do this thing. So I need like three months free, four months free. And what happened was my perspective was one of use that great gift that you're getting from working in TV episodics and sitcoms and make art with that. So this continued for the past 43 years.

[Elle Fanning]

Let's go back to a young Tim Robbins. Is it true that you started acting with a street theater group at 12?

[Tim Robbins]

Yeah.

[Elle Fanning]

First off, how does a 12 year old find a live theater group on the street? Like, how did that happen?

[Tim Robbins]

So my sister Adele, who is in the play, so she was working as a stage manager at this place called the Theater for the New City. And they were doing weird theater. You know, this is like late 60s, early 70s Greenwich Village. You know, there were plays with nude people in them. And so I got kind of interested in what she was doing.

[Ethan Hawke]

Of course you did.

[Tim Robbins]

And so Crystal Field, who ran that theater company and still runs it to this day, invited me to be in a play called Undercover Cop. And I was to play a gang member. And it was, you know, this kind of satire about what was going on in New York City at the time. And I found myself acting on the streets of New York. And what that meant was that they would pack A truck with four 4 by 8 platforms raised up about 2ft, which was the stage, a couple iron bars that held a backdrop, and a truck that had all the costumes in it. So we would go to a different neighborhood every Saturday and Sunday in the month of August and set up our stage, set up an audience area, do a little parade in the neighborhood to get more audience, and then do this play for 45 minutes to an hour.

[Elle Fanning]

What was the reception like? Do you remember how people received you?

[Tim Robbins]

Well, you have to understand, most of these people are seeing theater for the very first time. We're not going to wealthy neighborhoods. We're going to, you know, all kinds of neighborhoods in New York. And the reception was always great. One thing those audiences didn't have was the filter that you learn when you go to theater a lot. So there was an awful lot of talking back, call and response.

[Elle Fanning]

Was it kind of like a call and response, though?

[Tim Robbins]

Yeah, which is great. And by the way, you learn very quickly that that's a reality you have to deal with. Not only that reality, you have to deal with mama up four flights yelling for her kids or someone yelling, or some guy that's drugged out who's just wandering onto the stage all of a sudden. And he's there, and it's like, oh, what's he doing? We had one scene where George Britenief, this actor, plays this guy named Dogfiend, and he's like, he's a thief. And he grabs one of the characters on stage's purse and runs away, right? And we had three guys chasing him. He's running faster than I remember seen him run. He comes backstage and we're all like, no, no, it's just the play. It's just the play ready to kick his ass. It was so funny.

[Elle Fanning]

Those were some really good lessons for you as an. As an actor, as a performer.

[Tim Robbins]

Yes. And I didn't learn till much later how rooted the street theater of that theater for the new city was in the commedia dell', arte, which is what that was back in the 15th and 16th century. It was basically street theater. They wouldn't do Comedia dell' arte plays in fancy theaters. They would do them in a public square. And they were itinerant companies. They would do their show, they'd pack up, and they'd go to the next town. And so I've done a lot of exploration into that whole world of commedia dell' arte since and have come to understand how vital an art form it was because they were telling stories that were absolutely relevant to the world around them at the time. I know this about theater. I know that as a child, when I saw something transformative, something that blew my mind, I can still remember those plays, though. They're still with me. That's the power that theater has. It can actually transform a consciousness. It can change an opinion. It can illuminate a truth that in an immediate way, not in a manipulative way. Because film can be very manipulative. And it's. How long does it last? Is it candy? Or is it a substantial meal?

[Elle Fanning]

Shawshank Redemption is one of your most popular works. I'm sure just about everywhere you go, someone talks to you about it. Is that true?

[Tim Robbins]

Yeah. Yeah. It's very nice. It's very nice. I was joking with a friend of mine, you know, because we were out and there was, you know, about three or four times someone came up about Shawshank, and they were like, does that bother you? I said, not at all. You know, because, you know what would bother me is if I got famous for a movie where I played Kooky Magoober. That would really bother Me?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

Hey, Kooky Macuber.

[Tim Robbins]

That would be horrible. That would be a nightmare. But as it is, this is something. This is a movie that really moved people.

[Elle Fanning]

What do you think it is about this movie? That. Because it wasn't a box office hit when it first came out, but what people are relating to really, are like, the ability to see it over and over again. I was on the phone with my mom and I told her I was coming to do this, and she got really quiet and she said, shawshank Redemption's my favorite movie. And I said, yeah, I know everyone's favorite movie, but what do you think it is about it? That people keep going back to it over and over again and it hits the Tinder place within them?

[Tim Robbins]

Yeah. I think we all want to believe that despite the challenges we have in our lives, the obstacles that are placed in front of us, that there is a spot on a beach in Ziwa to Naho for us. I think that prison can be a metaphor for other things in life. There's many people that are in jobs that they, you know, have to have, but are not particularly liberating, shall we say. There's people in relationships that they should be out of. And I think there's various ways that we can close walls around ourselves in our life and imprison ourselves mentally and emotionally. And I think the idea that Andy had the long plan and could see a future that was brighter, I think that's something that people want to believe in. I also believe that it's one of the very few rare stories where you see a male friendship that is not contingent upon car chases or skirt chasing. It's not a buddy movie, which I've done a few of. It's a. It's a movie about a real friendship between two men, a love story in a lot of ways.

[Elle Fanning]

Does your view of that role and that film evolve as you grow and evolve?

[Tim Robbins]

I just appreciate it for everything it is. What a gift it has been. Because when people come up to me and talk to me about that film, it's not like I. I love that film. It's that that film changed me. That film made me think in a different way. Not to mention the times that I've talked to people that have been incarcerated. And I do work with people in LA and in California that have been incarcerated. The Actors Gang has prison programs. We do rehabilitation inside the California correctional system. And what that movie means to those that have been incarcerated is profound. This idea of hope, this idea that freedom can be achieved even in the direst circumstances so that it's about what's inside. That's why Andy survives.

[Elle Fanning]

Tim, thank you so much for your work, your honesty and this time that you've spent with us to tell us just a little snippet about your life and your career. Thank you so much, Tim.

[Tim Robbins]

Thank you, Tonya.

[Tanya Moseley]

Award winning actor Tim Robbins. FRESH AIR Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly CD Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson with Terry Gross. I'm Tanya Moseley.

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