Terry Gross

It's set on the night of the opening of Oklahoma, the first musical that Hart's longtime songwriting partner Richard Rogers wrote with another lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein.

There's an after-party at Sardi's where theater people would go on opening night and wait until the reviews came out.

Rogers had moved on because Hart had been drinking too much and was no longer a reliable partner.

In this scene, Rogers talks with Hart at the party.

Hart's trying to convince Rogers to collaborate on a satirical musical about Marco Polo.

Rogers is played by Andrew Scott, Ethan Hawke as Hart speaks first.

Ethan Hawke, welcome to Fresh Air and congratulations on all the new work you've been doing.

I've been really enjoying it.

You said that making Blue Moon stretched you and the director Richard Linklater to like the boundaries of your abilities.

What made it so hard for you and so different?

So you're playing someone who thinks that their height, their hair makes them really ugly and unappealing.

Plus he's gay and he has to hide that from the public.

No, absolutely.

Right, right.

So in a way, like talking all the time is a distraction from all the things that he thinks are –

uh unappealing about him and he's also very short i think he's like five feet or under you're you're pretty tall and you had to have a comb over for it which is literally not attractive so um you had to feel very much not like yourself

So I'm under five feet tall and I might be shorter than he was.

So how to playing somebody short and having to look up at people.

What did you learn about my life at my height?

So you've played at least two brilliant but self-destructive artists, Chet Baker, the great jazz trumpeter and singer, who had several addictions, and Larry Hart, who died of complications from drinking way too much.