Ethan Hawke was caught on hot mic 'spitting venom' about his director
Venting about work is common in any profession, but Ethan Hawke found out the hard way that Hollywood actors have to be especially careful when doing so.
The five-time Academy Awards nominated actor learned on the set of Hamlet that he should save his choice words until he was completely off the clock after getting caught on a hot mic.
Last week, the 55-year-old caught up with one of his co-stars from the film, Kyle MacLachlan, to promote MacLachlan's new memoir, Fictional Selves.
During their chat, the pair reflected on making the 2000 Shakespeare adaptation of Hamlet together - and Hawke recalled the awkward moment the two actors became friends.
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“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," Hawke said.
"‘He doesn’t know what he’s f***ing doing'.”
When Hawke looked over at MacLachlan, the actor was sneakily motioning toward Almereyda.
He continued: “I looked and I went, ‘What’s he doing?’ I look out the window and the director has his headphones on."
MacLachlan chimed in to explain that they were mic’d up the entire time, meaning the director heard every single complaint.
Fortunately, Almereyda took the mishap in his stride, and the trio even reunited decades later for the 2020 film Tesla.
Despite the awkward moment, Hawke looks back at the low-budget movie fondly
“[It was] a group of people coming together for absolute bliss of loving work,” Hawke recalled.
“We had Bill Murray on set who’s reading books on the background about how to perform Shakespeare. We were all so sincere and in love with it."
Hawke is far from the only actor to be caught out by a live microphone while venting their frustrations on a film set.
Perhaps one of the most memorable outbursts came from Christian Bale on the set of Terminator Salvation - although, he wasn't really caught by a hot mic but instead he was hot headed close to a mic!
A notorious audio tape leaked in 2009 of his expletive-laden rant at director of photography Shane Hurlbut, who had walked on mid-filming.
The actor was heard shouting: "Am I going to walk around and rip your f***ing lights down, in the middle of a scene? Then why the f*** are you walking right through? What the f*** is it with you? What don’t you f***ing understand? I’m going to f***ing kick your f***ing ass if you don’t shut up for a second.”
Bale later apologized for his behavior.
He told Los Angeles radio station KROQ: “I was out of order beyond belief. I make no excuses for it.”
Bale explained he had been immersed in the craziness of his character at the time.
“There is nobody who has heard that tape who has been hit harder than me," he added.
Christian maintained he patched things up with Shane afterwards.
Joe Yates