Ethan Hawke gave himself the "sensation" he could play the trumpet well for drama Born to Be Blue.
The American actor took singing lessons and learnt to play the trumpet for his role as late jazz musician Chet Baker in the movie, while also undertaking intense research into the Oklahoma native, including interviewing some of his 1950s bandmates.
The film does take liberties – including a fictionalisation of an incident where Chet almost played himself in a movie – in order to re-imagine the performer’s struggles, including a serious drug habit.
Preparing for the role, Ethan took the musical aspect very seriously as he already played the guitar and had "goofed around" with other instruments. However, the trumpet turned out to be much more difficult than he had anticipated and at one point he begged the film’s director Robert Budreau to delay shooting for a year so he could practise. But his tutor told him that even with eight years of preparation he still "wouldn’t be anywhere near ready".
"So what I did was I learned about six to eight songs as well as I could, and I played them badly, but at least I learned the fingering and the embouchure. I'd give myself the sensation I was playing well," Ethan, 45, told Empire magazine.
Ethan revealed he had been "passionate" about Chet for years, and around the time he was 30, he actually had input on a film project about the musician’s life in the early ‘50s.
"So Born to Be Blue felt like I was being offered the sequel to a film I never got to make, you know?" Ethan continued, adding that like every rise-to-fame story, the characters are perceived to be more interesting when they're deemed to be failing.
The Before Midnight star also noted his performance was particularly personal because the story paralleled his own life in some ways.
"There is a lot about this performance that is personal to me. One is losing several close friends and peers to heroin, and the other is that navigating your way through early success is very difficult," he explained.
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