Terry Gross

So are art and success getting closer for you with films like Boyhood, Blue Moon, the streaming series Reservation Dogs, and The Lowdown, The Good Lord Bird?

I want to mention something that is also something that you mentioned to Seymour Bernstein, the pianist.

You told him you had stage fright and talked to him a little bit about that.

Under what circumstances did you have stage fright?

Was it just literally on stage because you've also done a lot of theater?

Or was it also on screen when you could like do a retake?

But you said you thought when you had that stage fright that you were going to die.

Why was it death that you thought would be the final symptom of stage fright as opposed to just humiliation and never working again?

And he literally died several months after.

You tell a story, and I think it's in John Lahr's profile of you in The New Yorker, about how one of the ways you overcame the stage fright was the story of when you screamed on stage.

Would you tell that story?

I'll preface this with a story that Seymour Bernstein told you about a violinist he knows who was afraid he'd drop his bow during a performance.

Yes, exactly.

And he conquered that fear by intentionally dropping it during a performance, and it didn't ruin his life.

But getting out of the moment and thinking about who was in the audience that made you lose your train of thought as your character, that's what made you freak out where you were in the monologue, right?

Exactly, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's time to take another break, so let me reintroduce you.

My guest is Ethan Hawke, and he stars in the movie Blue Moon about Larry Hart, and he also stars in the streaming series The Lowdown.

We'll be right back.