Ethan Hawke

We... But see, we look so young in that picture, right?

But you got to understand, you know, when you're that age, you think you're dying to be 18, dying to be 16.

We went off, River and I stole a pack of Camel cigarettes because we both wanted to be like James Dean.

And, um...

And we had a lot of fun.

That's the truth.

But the movie came out, and I remember River and I going to the bathroom at the premiere.

And we'd grown a lot from the time we shot the movie to the time it came out.

And nobody in the bathroom really recognized us.

And they were all talking about what a turkey the movie was, how terrible it was.

And I remember just looking in their eyes and like, it wasn't the narrative we thought it was.

You know, we'd bought into the dream that, you know, we were going to be whatever teen icon we were thinking of at the time.

And it died a quick and salty death, my dream.

And I went back to high school and put away my dream of being an actor.

It seemed like it was this isolated, almost like choose your own adventure book or something, where I...

got to see what Hollywood was like, but then have it denied.

And it kind of like putting your hand in a flame.

It was not a good feeling when it was over.

And...

Then, you know, four years or so went by and I graduated high school and I was off at college and I heard about these auditions for a movie called Dead Poets Society.