Whether writing, directing, acting, or producing, Hawke spends most of his waking hours thinking about storytelling. His productivity is unique among his acting peers. After lunch, we walked around the corner to his office, where he was preparing to direct a film adaptation (written with Shelby Gaines) of Tennessee Williams’s lyrical political fantasia “Camino Real.” Set in a barbarous Spanish-speaking backwater, the play is a paean to nonconformity, told, as Williams put it, “in the spirit of the American comic strip.” Trapped within the town’s ancient walls, various literary figures—Casanova, Lord Byron, Don Quixote, Madame Gautier—and Kilroy, a former boxing champ and eternal Punchinello, contend with illusion and desperation. In 1999, Hawke played Kilroy in a memorable production, directed by Nicholas Martin, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the experience stayed with him. “It’s like sticking your finger in an electric socket and having it shoot through the audience,” he said. “The way Williams deals with iconography and sexuality and self-hatred and self-love—it’s just the most incredible bit of performance I’ve ever had. I’ve been chasing that feeling and wanting to give it to an audience.”
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