Ethan Hawke stunned by Robert Redford turning him down for movie role

Ethan Hawke is looking back fondly at the time Robert Redford turned him down for an undisclosed role in his 1992 film, A River Runs Through It.

During Wednesday’s episode of the recently-reinstated Jimmy Kimmel Live, Hawke described the late Hollywood legend, who died at 89 last week, as “one of the heroes of my life” and shared his bittersweet experience auditioning for the Redford-directed film. 

“So this is the life of a young actor, it’s tough, it’s amazing. You get an audition for Robert Redford, right?” Hawke began. “And I get this little speech I’m supposed to memorize and it’s really long — it’s like, a page and a half long — and I stay up all night working on this speech. I’m working on it, I’m working on it, I come into the audition, I’m half an hour early, sitting in a chair like this. They let me in, ‘Mr. Redford will see you now.’”

Hawke explained that his success in the 1989 film The Dead Poets Society had helped him land an audition for Redford’s film, which followed two brothers — Norman (Craig Sheffer) and Paul (Brad Pitt) — as they grow up in Montana amid the backdrop of World War I and the Great Depression.

“I walked in the room, he shook my hand, he said, ‘Hey Ethan, I hear you’re from Austin,’” Hawke recalled. “He knew my name and he knew where I was from. My brain started to break.” 

It didn’t help that the walls behind Redford were also decorated with memorabilia from his many great films, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Downhill Racer, The Candidate, and Jeremiah Johnson. 

“He goes, ‘So, you ready to read?’” Hawke said. “And I was like, ‘To be totally honest, sir, I think I’m starstruck. I’m not sure I can breathe right now, and if I could just have like, 60 seconds to step out of the room and come back in again, I’ll be ready.’”

According to Hawke, Redford encouraged him to “come back tomorrow” and read instead. “I don’t want to come back tomorrow — dude I didn’t sleep all night! Now I’ve got the same speech to come in [and perform],” Hawke exclaimed, calling it “absolute torture” to be unexpectedly sent away. 

So, he made sure to arrive ready to go the next day. “I do the audition and he’s really cool. He looks at me and he goes, ‘You know, I’m an actor.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I know,’” Hawke said. “He said, ‘I always give actors a second chance. I give ‘em some notes and I let ‘em try it one more time to see what they’re made of, but you nailed it. And you’re gonna have a great career and you’re too young for this part, but it was a pleasure to meet you.’” 

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The swift rejection took Hawke by surprise. “I walked out of there kind of stunned [and it was] because he’s an actor, he knew he just saved me weeks and weeks of worrying,” he said. “It hurt not to get the part and to know it immediately and to say it to my face, but it was the truth. And he also said something nice, right?”

He continued, “He said I’m going to have a real career, [but] I didn’t get the part. I couldn’t be sure whether I felt good or bad.”

That is, Hawke said, until “a couple months later” when an unexpected visitor showed up to see him perform in a New York City theater production. “Robert Redford came to see me in this little tiny Off-Off-Broadway theater,” he said. “And, afterwards, he came backstage and said, ‘Good job, I tell you, keep doing what you’re doing, it’s gonna go great.’” 

Hawke admitted he had no idea Redford was in the theater that evening, but that the pair continued to keep in touch over the following decades. He also shared the last words that Redford ever said to him. 

“He said, ‘Stop wearing a cowboy hat, people’ll think you’re losing your hair,” Hawke remarked. “It was about 18 months ago or something like that. So I just wanted to bring him up, ‘cause he’s a legend.”

He added that, in addition to Redford’s many accolades, he deserved attention for “the kind of human being he was” during his life. “It was a leadership in not just my life, but in my entire community’s life,” Hawke said. “And when you do the good that you have the power to do — that’s all any of us have to do. And I thought he led his life by example.” 

Earlier in their conversation, Hawke explained that he considered Redford and his pal Paul Newman to be the true definition of an American man. “Those are people that use their power, their privilege, and their good fortune to empower other people,” he said, noting that they both made “a tremendous impact on my life.”

He continued, “When Before Sunrise came out and nobody liked it, you know who liked it? Robert Redford liked it. And he used it to open the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. He was a champion of other people and he understood how to use his power to empower others.”

Watch Hawke pay tribute to Redford in the clip above.