Ethan Hawke meets his audience in Madrid after filming with Almodovar in Almeria

Less than 24 hours after filming a western in Almería with Pedro Almodovar, Ethan Hawke was showered with crowds this Sunday at Madrid’s Cinema Dore, where he went to present his fourth feature as a director. Hello (2018), about country-folk musician Blaze Foley, who wanted to become a legend and ended up being a cursed artist.

“I don’t want to be remembered, I want to forget… We all struggle with the idea of ​​seeing ourselves in the third person, but the real goal is to be completely immersed in the moment you’re living in,” Hawke said at a post-screening colloquium at the packed Cine Doré with Pedro Almodovar among the attendees.

Online tickets for the event sold out in less than ten minutes, and dozens of fans lined up at the door to get an autograph or photo of the actor. Dead poets society Or Richard Linklater’s love trilogy.

shooting strange lifestyle The 30-minute western starring Hawke and Chile’s Pedro Pascal ended at 1 a.m. Sunday, according to Almodovar himself, after the Texas actor revealed he was sitting in the back of the room.

“I’m very happy with the film,” said the director from La Mancha, “proud” to have worked with Hawke in “difficult” conditions due to, among other things, the high summer temperatures in Almería.

“A film works when the whole team falls in love with the same idea, and the greats like Almodovar get it,” Hawke replied from the stage, who in recent years has been developing his career as an actor and more quietly as a director. in parallel.

At the recent Cannes Film Festival, he premiered his new documentary series about Paul Newman and Joan Woodward, and as an artist he has several projects in development, ranging from sequels. daggers in the back on Rodrigo Garcia’s film, Raymond and Ray With Ewan McGregor.

“The great directors were only on their own sets, and I, as an actor, a lot, which allows you to steal from a lot of people,” he said at the ceremony presented by Carlos, the deputy director of the Spanish Film Library. Reviriego.

“I had many teachers from a very young age, I saw that there is not one way to make a film, but many, and I was able to understand what works for each one and why,” he added.

Among all those teachers, Richard Linklater stands out, a Texan like himself. “He is my best friend, we grew up together, we shot nine films and one of them took 12 years,” he said. childhood (2014).

Hawk said Linklater was the first person he called when he decided to do it Hello, An independent, low-budget film that was largely financed by the actor himself.

“The advice he gave me was: ‘Think you’re 19 years old’ (…), have the humility of a student, and that was the best advice he gave me, because folk are not pretentious at all. They say that the song is a three-chord folk song, and it is true, and it fits.”

The actors who play musicians in the film, namely Ben Dickey as Foley and Charlie Sexton as Townes Van Zandt, are real musicians, which was at the heart of the project from the beginning, Hawke revealed.

Dickie is a friend of his, and years ago on New Year’s Eve, he started crying at his house because after a career spanning several decades, he couldn’t make it and didn’t feel like a “real musician.” Hawke thought back to the case of Blaze Foley, whom they both admired but was a victim of self-destruction.

He started playing Clay Pigeon, and that’s when I first got the idea—Dick was playing Foley in the movie—and I immediately knew I had to do it, so I suggested he take acting lessons. He told me of course, but I thought he was joking,” he recalled.

Foley’s story has something in common with that of Chet Baker, which Hawk brought to life in the film. born blue (2015). “Even then, I learned that there are artists who give their best in their music, but they’re not really great in their lives,” he recalls. Magdalena Tsanis