“Quit wrestling.”
And in two words, punctuated by a quick laugh, John Hawkes sums up his journey from the placid lakes and rolling farms of rural Minnesota to the urban intrigue and cultural quiddity of Hollywood’s soundstages.
Heartbroken fans of HBO’s doomed drama Deadwood know Hawkes as Sol Star, the soft-spoken merchant and friendly foil to seething sheriff Seth Bullock. But Hawkes has more than 70 major films and televisions shows to his credit, from The Perfect Storm and Identity to ER and The X-Files, spanning nearly two decades. It’s unlikely that any of it would have materialized, however, if it hadn’t been for change of interests during his teenage years.
“I was very passionate about wrestling until I was in high school, but then I quit and got into a play,” he explains over the phone from his room in New York, where he’s filming American Gangster, a Ridley Scott project with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe that’s due to be released next year. “After a year of studying theater I moved to Austin… and I built on that and moved to L.A. about 16 years ago.”
Not that the glitz of Los Angeles and the mainstream acting world held any special appeal for Hawkes, who grew up in the quiet farming town of Alexandria, about 50 miles east of Minnesota’s border with South Dakota. He saw the move as a necessity for a growing actor, the natural next rung in the career ladder for anyone who hoped to act and make a successful living at it.
“I always equated actors moving to L.A., and this was long before Deadwood, to a modern-day gold rush, with people panning for creative gold. It’s a different thing to try your luck out there. And it’s a bit like Deadwood was, where a lot of people come with a plan and a little bit of money, just kind of falling off the turnip truck. And just like Deadwood, there’s people shooting at each other,” he says with a laugh. “The odds are probably about the same, too. But the best way to do it is to try.”
Looking at Hawkes’ resume, it’s clear that his strategy paid off, placing him firmly with the successful minority. But in the midst of all his recent acting endeavors, he says that HBO’s Deadwood stands out, thanks to everything from a compelling storyline from creator David Milch to an outstanding cast and crew.
“But mostly it’s the real sense of pride and responsibility we all feel to get the story right,” he says. “We want to do people proud. I’m not sure how modern-day Deadwood people would feel, I’m sure some people object to language, but we wanted to be true to the story and the people, the people who blazed the trail. We’re such a coddled people now... Those pioneers had a lot of sand and grit just to get there.”
