Ethan Hawke reveals shocking acting fact

Ethan Hawke got candid about what he does when preparing for a role

By The News Digital
December 12, 2025
Ethan Hawke reveals shocking acting fact
Ethan Hawke reveals shocking acting fact

Ethan Hawke writes all of his lines by hand.

The 55-year-old film star is always meticulous in his preparation for a role, with him explaining that it helps him to be "extremely critical of the writer, in a positive way."

The Hollywood star told Variety: "I hand-write everything like it’s my journal.”

He continued, "I’m not memorising from a typewritten page; I don’t want irrelevant stage directions to be part of it. I try to write it from memory, and then I look and see what I got wrong.”

"It also helps me be extremely critical of the writer, in a positive way. 'It doesn’t seem like I would use that word four times. I think this is a better word.' Then I record it, and I listen, and I see what I got wrong,” Ethan added.

"Take Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather. I know all the lyrics to that song. I don’t know how I know all the lyrics to that song. I absorbed it at coffee shops and on the car radio, and it’s in me now," he elaborated.

Ethan Hawke is also convinced that his approach makes a lot of logical sense.

The movie star concluded: "If you have a really big speech — Jon Voight taught me this — you unlace your shoe. And you have to do the speech lacing your shoe. If I was talking, lacing my shoe, it would be no problem. If I’m trying to remember, then it’s difficult to do."