Sundance: John Hawkes’ Soaring Performance

With stellar performances in Winter’s Bone and Martha Marcy May Marlene already under his belt, John Hawkes has taken on yet another role; that of disabled man Mark O’Brian whose priest (William H. Macy) recommends him to hire a surrogate (Helen Hunt) to aid him in the enjoyment of sex, even though O’Brian suffers from polio and is bound to an iron lung and cannot move his body, save his face and neck. The Surrogatehas received positive feedback at Sundance for its daring and unusual plot, as well as the performances from Hawkes, Hunt and Macy.

In an interview done by GQ, John talks to Logan Hill about how he landed the part, independent films v.s. big-budget movies, and how it feels to get recognition for his work.

Here are some highlights:

GQ: Let’s start with the basics. How did this project come about?
John Hawkes: Well, the project came to me the old-fashioned way in one of several scripts that I was offered after my great luck of last year through the awards season [after Winter's Bone]. I had a pretty nice-size stack of things to read. I chose the two lowest-budget projects. There were some ones that could have probably made some money. But I’m a sucker for good writing and for a good story. So, I read the script and thought it was pretty amazing. I met with Ben Lewin at a deli in Los Angeles and was quite taken with Ben. He’s a wonderful, unusual, interesting man. My first question to Ben was, “Why not a disabled actor? Have you sought out disabled actors?” He assured me that he had, that he spent quite a long time, and some of those actors were cast in the film. But he just felt that he hadn’t found who he needed and felt that it was something I could do. Then, with Ben I tried to figure out who else we could cast. It’s a very low-budget movie but the script was so great that it attracted Helen Hunt to play the surrogate and William H. Macy to play the priest, Father Brendan.

GQ: What were those other scripts you were getting? The bad guy in the superhero movie?
John Hawkes: Sure. Sure. There’s a few of those. And I’m not against making money. I’m not against large-studio films. But for the most part I just gravitate towards material that happens to fall into the independent vein. I’ve spoken on this before, but one of the issues with the larger movies is that there’s many bosses. A lot of people vet each tiny decision. On an independent film it doesn’t have to do with guessing what’s going to make the most money or guess what the audience will like. It’s a filmmaker and his team or her team telling the story they want to tell the way they want to tell it without interference from people who think that the lead actor should smile more or things like that. There are wonderful studio movies. But I feel like the percentage has begun to drop over the years of wonderful studio movies versus wonderful independent movies, just in my own subjective opinion. The art that changes the world to me isn’t when people guess what the audience might like but rather tell their story or paint their painting or dance their dance or write their novel the way they want to do it.

GQ: Usually, when you ask an actor say they don’t pay attention to the chatter, that buzz doesn’t matter. But you saw that it mattered when your awards buzz meant that more people saw Winter’s Bone and Martha Marcy—and those scripts started rolling in. Yesterday when the film sold and people started talking 2013 Best Actor, that must have been a pretty incredible day. But please don’t tell me it didn’t matter.
John Hawkes: Well, I do have a skepticism about kind of everything. I’ve had my heart broken in this business many times. So, my key to happiness has been a very low expectations. All I really took from yesterday—and it was an extraordinary day—was that people in the audience were really moved and excited by the film. They seemed to feel that they’d found a gem that hadn’t existed for me personally. It would be disingenuous to say that it doesn’t matter to me or that it isn’t really important to me. I mean, I’m going to be doing this work as long as I’m physically able. I did it for many years for no money and was no less happy than I am now because with attention comes a lot of other things that aren’t quite as pleasant. But, no, it’s an extraordinary day and I’m so happy to be part of this project. This festival has been a huge part of my life, from doing the labs and readings and up this festival. I’m pretty beholden to Mr. Redford and Michelle Satter and all the folks at Sundance.