Before she was an icon of punk culture, before she was a Pirelli’s calendar pinup, Patti Smith thought the theater was beckoning her. Loving the stage but finding the job downright tedious, she decided on a nice, easy career like that of a rock and roll star. Patti sat down with Ethan Hawke last week for a Tribeca Talks. Instead of the normal Q&A format, they agreed that neither would act as moderator, which gave the talk a more conversational feel. During their exchange, they discussed several things, including their views on acting and a shared love of Vincent D’Onofrio.
Patti Smith always thought she’d become an actor before ever becoming a songwriter.
“I loved being onstage, but I couldn’t take the repetition of doing the same lines,” she told Ethan Hawke during a talk at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday. “I didn’t have the right discipline. Acting is so hard. God bless our actors. No one realizes what a rough gig it is, really. They think, ‘Movie stars, they get so much money.’ It’s the worst f—ing job in the world.
“Fourteen, 15 hours at a time, and a lot of times just sitting in seven hours of makeup, then there’s a technical problem and you have to do it all over again,” she continued. “You have to shoot the same scene from 40 different angles. Crappy food. … Acting is much harder than rock and roll.”
Hawke laughed and added, “All that is true — I completely agree.”
Smith said she used to dream of starring in Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children — of which Hawke said excitedly, “You’re getting old enough for the part now!” — but after seeing Meryl Streep in a 2006 staging at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, she nixed the idea. “I couldn’t believe how awesome it was,” she recalled. “The strength she had, her movement, her body language. I don’t think she has arthritis.”
Most recently, Smith has found success as an author of crime novels, and she has actor Vincent D’Onofrio to thank: After occasionally watching dubbed episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent while touring Europe, “Finally, I just went and bought a f—ing TV and started watching it at home and seeing it in English,” she said. “I fell in love with it.”
Hawke also sang praises for D’Onofrio, who commits to every role, regardless of size: “They give him [Daniel Day Lewis] an Oscar for [Lincoln] because he was great in it. But give me Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner, a part like Lincoln and the best master craftsmen of every profession, and I’ll do a pretty good job, too. But put me as a guest star on an episode of Matlock — that is hard! We should be giving awards to that guy.”
I dig the D’Onofrio love; you can watch a clip of their discussion here. Hawke was there to speak about his latest project Born to Be Blue, a biopic about Chet Baker. Just on a personal note, I am a massive Chet Baker fan and cannot wait to see this. Patti said of the film, “it moves like methadone, not that I have taken it.” She also told a story about how she pursued Baker to play trumpet on the track Elegie for her album Horses. It almost happened too, until his manager demanded 1/4th her album’s budget for him to perform.
In 1971, Patti wrote a one-act play with Sam Shepard called Cowboy Mouth. According to Patti, Shepard suggested writing and performing the play as a cathartic closure to the affair they had been having. When Patti recounted this story, she said Shepard gave her a note about improvising that I just love. She said Shepard told her, “‘Patti, it’s improvising, you can’t make a mistake. If you miss a beat, you invent another beat,’ That made perfect sense to me, that little instruction. … That served me my whole life, one of the greatest lessons I’ve ever gotten.”
Photo credit: Fame/Flynet Photos and Getty Images
I’m sure she knows it’s not really the worst job in the world, or even close, and that it’s well compensated compared to most other jobs. It does look very tedious. Still, I can think of lots of jobs that are much worse and don’t give you the same financial freedom. Sort of a dumb remark.
Most actors aren’t rich, though – only a very small minority.
That’s Patti Smith you’re talking about. We aren’t worthy.
Gotta love anyone who loves Vincent D’Onofrio. YUM.
Ditto. I always loved Patti and reading M Train and learning of her affection for L&O:CI and V D’O made me love her even more. It’s rare to see Patti on CB but certainly welcome.
i thank everyone for supporting my tv husband
I had always wondered how she ended up doing a cameo on one of the episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Mystery solved for me.
(If you don’t know the episode, it was one of the very last ones of the series and features Cynthia Nixon. Patti plays an old friend of VDO’s character, a professor who specializes in mythology.)
compared to being on drugs on stage and being late to gigs yeah acting is harder than being a rock star but no its nowhere near a bad job, seriously. how tone deaf.
+1
And she isn’te even saying it about actors in general but about those that are famous and make millions a year.
If she had said it about struggeling upcoming actors that work a second job to pay the rent I might have found it at least somewhat understandable.
Try working in a coal mine or on a field etc. for 15 hours a day and see how hard you find it to sit in a make-up chair for a while.
I wouldn’t want to be an actor and I wouldn’t want to deal with the media/crazy fans all the time, but there are still dozens of jobs I would like to do even less.
I think she was engaging in a bit of hyperbole there.
Esther and Linn you don’t know she’s being tongue in cheek? The crappy food comment. Ethan Hawke laughing. It’s not that serious.
@FingerBinger I hope you’re right, because my first thought was “ORLY? Go back to your little bubble you self centered (insert expletive of choice here)”
Yes, it’s a bad job, but people like you will be bitching how spoiled they are til the end of time. Acting is blue collar work that is notoriously unstable. The ones you hear about that are actually well-paid are a minority of actors.
Patti is the ultimate rock goddess who didn’t do drugs or show up late. And if you think she has limited life experience read her novels Just Kids or M Train- or one of her hundreds of poetry books. She was married to Robert Mapplethorpe- she was cool before it was a thing. Listen to “Horses ” that was 1975!!! She’s brilliant.
Look at her smile in all of these photos! I don’t ever remember seeing her so happy.
I have to wonder, though, if the young ones on this sight know who she is.
I do Jen. She had a tumultuous relationship with Robert Mapplthorpe who shot the cover of her album Horses. She married and dropped off the earth for many years and she dated Todd Rundgren too. She influenced a lot of folks like Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. Natalie Merchant covered her song Because the Night.
I read a biography about her and a juicy gossipy tidbit- She had been jealous of Debbie Harry, who had been considered the beauty of the downtown scene.
Aw, that’s great to know. I’m going to check out that biography you mentioned.
I love Patti (she’s my second favorite Patti/y behind Patty Griffin – that voice!). Horses saved my life along with Blue by Joni Mitchell, and Warren Zevon’s self-titled album when I was sixteen. I’ll always remember the first line of Lester Bangs’ review of her record Easter, “Patti, start the revolution without me.” I’ve paraphrased that line a lot in my life. My dad had an amazing backlog of copies of Rolling Stone and Creem magazines, along with a few random ones thrown in, including that issue of Phonograph, to go along with his actual record collection. There were some upsides to having a stoner for a father, I suppose.
when i grow up, i want to be just like patti!
She has always seemed like a such a lovely lady to me. Like that Grandma you can talk about anything with.
Love me some Patti Smith. Hard worker, disciplined, fearless. (Also, lucky Meg White is her daughter-in-law.)
Sadly, no longer. Meg and Jackson Smith divorced 3 years ago.
Noooooo! (Shows you the depth of the rock under which I’ve been residing.) Thanks for the info.
VDO is so so so underrated. Glad to see someone singing his praises!
I love, love D’Onofrio.
I found Just Kids to be a more compelling read than M Train, but certainly recommend both to anyone. Disregarding Ethan H’s dicey romantic history, he almost always is a good interview subject.
I’ve only read just kids, will have to look at M train.
Just to see Patti here makes me happy. I’m 46 but I always say that I want to be her when I grow up.
+1
Me too. I’ve always loved her style, and she just seems like a lovely cool person. I read Just Kids and loved it. Also saw the Mapplethorpe exhibit and it was nice to see his photos from the time he was living with Patti.
Cowboy Mouth is a great play
I appreciate when someone comes out and says that acting is a really tough job. I don’t think most of us realize it. I honestly can say I couldn’t do it. I wanted to be an actress for a brief period when I was a pre-teen, but it wasn’t for me. I can’t imagine what people in hollywood go through.
Considering how much acting we consume through tv and films most people know very little about the craft and what it requires. The glamorous aspect of hollywood probably doesn’t help because it emphasizes the superficiality of it all with no real focus on the craft. And also there’s loads of sh*tty acting even in hollywood.
As I see it, acting is similar to when we listen to a song that’s uplifting or really depressing, but with the difference that instead of feeling those emotions for just the duration of the song, actors have to dive into it and stay in it for the needed time in order to play the character/scene and repeat it over and over again. Songs can take us to uncomfortable places that aren’t really ours independently of what we are going through at the moment, it’s like a smell that reminds us of something but with acting you can’t have your own moods and just go trough the motions, and in films the camera is unforgiving, it shows if you are not present.
This is a type of generosity and dedication that I believe most don’t understand or value. And that’s exactly because of this state of living with emotions and circumstances that are not yours that some actors can lose their balance as themselves.
Every job as their draw backs. Sitting around in pounds of screen makeup just waiting for the camera to be ready? Yeah, that would drive me nuts.
I’ve watched a few times when I happen to be around filming in NY or LA, and it does look very repetitive and boring. Twenty takes of walking down steps and getting in a cab. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst job in the world, but it does look boring.
I adore Patti Smith, but I just have to say, I have done my share of weird acting gigs, including one that involved a 14 hour shoot in freezing weather with me standing in a swamp dressed as a black bird. We were all hugging hot water bottles under our costumes, and had to repeat the choreography over and over so that the director would get just the right shot.
Thought I would die! Loved every minute of it! And I would do it again without any second thoughts if I could make my living that way. With gladness in my heart.
ANYTHING to not have to sit in a cubicle all day. I just put in a twelve hour shift delivering a software product, and my fingers barely left the keyboard. I need a massage therapist to put me onto a rack now. Try that on for size just once, JUST ONCE, all you Hollywood people.
Acting a hard job? Jesus. Can probably only come from people who never tried a real one. Stage acting I can imagine of being physically demanding at times, but so are many other jobs. For the rest, it’s learning lines, and a lot of waiting around. And sure, very repetitive, and maybe boring for that reason. But hard? Plus, how many jobs are rewarded like this one? The one thing I agree about is VDO, one of the underrated actors.
I hope she is joking because saying acting is the worst job makes me mad. She wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds at some of my old jobs. Try working customer service with mandatory overtime and people literally screaming in your ear because they couldn’t get their medication and tell me acting is a tough job. Or I used to work with a guy who worked at a foundry, He worked 12 hour days in a foundry in the summer where the temperature could get up to 100F outside the factory. There are much more difficult jobs than acting, rant over.
Yes, there are worse jobs than acting; we have all had them. But think! If Patti had gone on acting, we wouldn’t have had the mesmerizing, passionate Patti onstage and brilliant Patti songs and poetry.
Thank you, Hecate, for a great post.
I always thought Patti was incredibly overrated and annoying (how long is she going to flog her relationship with Mapplethorpe?) but I full-on dislike her after she appeared on the Metropolitan Opera’s radio broadcast. It’s a show where opera critics discuss the live opera being broadcast during intermission and they had her on one week.
She sounded like an idiot. She had no qualifications to be on that show and had nothing relevant to say but boy did she sound like her head was up her ass. I was embarrassed for whomever asked her. She should have turned down the invitation.
No surprise she’s being interviewed by pretentious douchebag Ethan Hawke; she’s right up his alley.
She has very limited life experience if she believes that. I’ll always remember Morgan Freeman laughing at an interviewer who remarked how hard it must be to go onstage six nights a week at his age, he said something along the lines of it’s not work like digging ditches…..
Patti Smith is my tomboy hero. She is an absolute treasure. Go out and read Just Kids, kids. If you like HBO’s Vinyl, you will love her (real) depictions of CBGB’s in the 70s :))
Hecate, I haven’t commented on CB in months but just had to tell you: I share your love for Chet Baker, even named my adopted senior dog after him (though I personally prefer to call him Chet “Barker” or “Chetty B”).
And since watching Let’s Get Lost, I can’t wait for Born To Be Blue as I think Ethan Hawke will be great in it.