Ethan Hawke shares the 'chilling' lesson he learned on 'Hamlet'

Ethan Hawke says he once madmouthed a director on set, then found out the director heard every word.

Hawke, 55, made the admission while recently moderating a book talk on September 28 for his friend and former costar Kyle MacLachlan, 67, who has a new memoir, Fictional Selves.

During the talk, they looked back on making the 2000 film Hamlet together, and Hawke shared the story of how they became friends.

“We were doing a scene in a car where we had to wait for a long period of time, and I don’t know what I was mad about — I went on to work with this director many times and he’s a friend — but I was very mad at Michael [Almereyda] that day and I was just spitting venom about this guy, ‘He doesn’t know what he’s f****** doing,’” Hawke recalled.

Then he noticed MacLachlan quietly pointing toward Almereyda. "I look out the window and the director has his headphones on," Hawke said. MacLachlan explained that they were "mic'd up" the whole time, so Almereyda heard everything.

The two actors said the director "took it in stride," and there is no bad blood. Almereyda worked with both of them again on the 2020 film Tesla. Hawke has worked with him many times and calls him a friend.

In Hamlet, Hawke played a filmmaker named Hamlet, and MacLachlan played Claudius, a slick corporate CEO. The cast also included Julia Stiles, Bill Murray, Diane Venora, Liev Schreiber, Sam Shepard and Steve Zahn.

Hawke said making the low-budget film was a joyful time. "It was a group of people coming together for absolute bliss of loving work," he said. He added that MacLachlan was so comfortable with the Shakespeare verse that he enjoyed it.