Ethan Hawke Details How Sidney Lumet Pit Him And Philip Seymour Hoffman Against Each Other For ‘Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead’

While breaking down his career with Vanity Fair, four-time Oscar-nominated actor Ethan Hawke recalled his work on Sidney Lumet‘s final film, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman, in which the director pit the two against each other to heighten their performances.

The Lowdown actor explained that he and Hoffman had been friends for years, during which The Master actor brought Lumet to a play featuring Hawke: the inflection point that led to his eventual casting in the 2007 crime-thriller.

“Phil was great, and by that, I mean, he didn’t suffer fools lightly. He was one of those people that it just felt life or death to him whether or not we did the scene well. The stakes were very high for him, and it could be very scary,” Hawke recalled of working with his late friend.

To Hawke’s point, a key in unlocking his performance was a piece of wisdom the Capote star gave him; though it sounded “mean,” Hawke maintained it wasn’t, as Hoffman was telling him the reason Hawke was having trouble understanding his character was because he was attempting to play him like an “alpha,” though that trait befitted Hoffman’s role more.

“And for some reason it all just clicked. It’s like he started a dynamic between the two of us that was right. Power and status in brothers, in society, it all plays a game,” the Training Day alum said.

In Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, debt-ridden broker Andy (Hoffman) ropes his younger brother (Hank) into the perfect crime: robbing their parents’ jewelry shop, triggering a series of catastrophic consequences that upends the entire family. Just years prior to the making of the film, it was Hawke — who had been a child actor and was already starring in movies while Hoffman was still in acting class with mutual friends — who had more sway in Hollywood.

“And now he was Academy Award-winning Philip Seymour Hoffman, and he’s casting me,” the Blue Moon star said. “You know, the power dynamic had shifted, and I wasn’t letting it shift. And there’s a similar air between Andy and Hank, and Sidney Lumet fanned the flames of it. I’d come in in the morning, and Sidney would say, ‘I saw dailies last night [sucks teeth]. Phil is so good. He’s so good. You know, not since Marlon Brando have I seen work like that.’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, great, great. And my stuff was?’ ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, it was fine. I mean, it must be a real honor to work with him.’”

He continued, “At wrap of the movie, I went up to Phil and I said, ‘You know, this has been a great experience, but I’m so glad it’s over.’ I said, ‘Because if I gotta hear one more time from that old dog that, not since Marlon Brando have I seen work like this…’ and Phil goes, ‘He said that to you?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘He said that to me every day about you.’”

When the co-stars eventually confronted Lumet, the late filmmaker remarked, “‘You guys are so easy to play, it’s unbelievable.’”

Watch the full video interview with Vanity Fair below: