After decades of letting his heart and mind determine his career choices, John Hawkes has earned his first two Emmy nominations: for playing corrupt Alaskan cop Hank Prior in “True Detective: Night Country” and then, to his surprise, for “No Use,” the song he composed and performs in the HBO limited series.
“The best performance nomination was a real surprise and the best song nomination was a real shock,” Hawkes says. Despite a resume of more than 140 best supporting actor nominations (plus his best supporting actor Oscar nomination for Jennifer Lawrence’s “Winter’s Bone”), the soft-spoken and intellectually passionate Hawkes still thinks like an outsider.
“There are a lot of things I want to do that don’t pay a lot, so that was kind of a dilemma at first,” he says at HBO’s Culver City headquarters. “But I found my way into independent film, I think, because there were really good scripts and great roles, and I wanted to be a part of that.”
Hawkes, who grew up in the farming community of Alexandria, Minnesota, moved to Austin, Texas, to pursue music and acting “and to try to make ends meet,” he adds with a laugh. But in 1990, he moved to Los Angeles. His intelligence and emotionality soon earned him numerous television appearances, including recurring roles in such films as “Deadwood,” “Eastbound & Down” and the upcoming “Criminal,” which he is filming in Oregon. He has also won praise for film roles such as the iron-lunged poet Mark O’Brien in “The Sessions”; a sweet, sad-sack shoe-salesman father in Miranda July’s “Me and You and Everyone We Know”; and the manipulative cult leader in “Martha Marcy May Marlene.”
Hank from “Night Country” is a completely different character. He’s full of prejudice and resentment, corrupt and inept at his job, and as alone as any other man in the Arctic Circle town of Ennis. He barely controls his contempt for police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster), who got the promotion she was promised by doing dirty work for local mining interests. Worse, Hank’s son, Peter (British actor Finn Bennett), has followed in his father’s footsteps into law enforcement, only to come close to being Liz’s best mentor.
As horrible as Hank is, he packs a poignant punch. Hawkes worked closely with “Night Country” executive producer Issa Lopez to give the character such compelling dimensions.
“I always love creating my own story, and this was unusual because Issa helped a lot and we did it together,” the actor says. “I was worried that the way it was written at the beginning, Hank would be chauvinistic and a little flat and not very nuanced. She took my ideas to make the character more interesting. I would say something like, ‘I don’t think Hank left his wife or that she died; I think she left him. ’ You always want to raise the bar, make things as bad as possible for your character. I would bring something like that up and she would take it in other directions that were better, a lot of times, than what I was suggesting.”
However, Hawkes repeatedly objected to one of his suggestions and is delighted that those efforts failed.
“The idea is to always fight to solve your problem. And when you play people, like me, who are not prepared, who don’t have the tools to do it, it’s something interesting to see,” says actor John Hawkes.
(Michele K. Short / HBO)
“When Issa came up with the guitar scene, I was at first pale, thinking that if this guy was creative he probably wouldn’t be the person he is,” the actor says. “But when I thought about it more, when I read a book or watch a movie, what I’m most drawn to is a character who acts outside the box. David Milch used to tell us in ‘Deadwood’ that we’re all a mystery to ourselves, that we’ve all done things in our lives and then he’d say, ‘I can’t believe I did that. ’ So in the end it was a great idea, and I just imagined Hank as a guy who kept his creativity a secret from the world.”
Hawkes has contributed original songs to several of his films: “Winter's Bone,” “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” “Too Late,” “Unlovable.”
“It’s a great gift to be able to join the project in a different way and contribute something useful,” he says of these parallel production jobs. “I love music and songs, and to contribute something of my own to something is incredibly lucky and special.”
Hawkes had no intention of singing on “Night Country,” but there was a live music venue in Iceland, where the series was filmed, that proved fatally tempting.
“Originally, Issa asked me to write a short piece of music,” he explains. “From the script, I figured it would start with Hank quietly playing guitar at home, then the guitar would provide music for Kali’s scenes.” [Reis, who plays the show’s other key detective] and Jodie's characters search for ice caves and meet with disappointment, then go to a protest at a mine.
“But when I was in Reykjavík, I played a gig on a Saturday night. Issa came to me and said, ‘Well, Hank has to sing!’ I didn’t think it was a good idea, but we talked about it for several weeks. I resisted writing lyrics, but I’m so glad she prevailed.”
“As a musician, it was fun to write alongside a person who doesn’t exist. I was immersed in Hank’s world when I wrote those lyrics. ‘No Use’ reflects Freud’s idea of love and work, and he gets nothing from either.”
The song stems from Hank's devastating revelation that the “Russian girlfriend” he was paid to fly to him doesn't exist. It may seem strange that a seasoned cop would fall for such an old scam, but there are some things we can't believe we'd fall for.
“The idea is to always be struggling to solve your problem,” Hawkes says of many of his characters.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“Even reasonably intelligent people can get carried away by fairly obvious plans when their heart is involved,” Hawkes says. “Hank is genuinely in love, at least with the idea of her getting off. Rather than making it a matter of him wanting to sleep with someone, it’s just a deep need for connection that’s snatched away from him – basically, it’s just another in a series of disappointments.”
Which brings us back to that poignant, pathetic dynamic that Hawkes conveys so well.
“People who suffer?” the actor suggests calling these characters. “PI-Ps? Pips, if you will. One thing I’ve learned along the way is that while the character you’re playing has every right to wallow in self-pity, they should never do so. As an audience member, I don’t want to see anyone navel-gazing. Part of the beauty of the creative world is the idea of grappling with difficulty. Without conflict, there’s no story. It would be great if the world were perfect, but I imagine art would be pretty boring.
“The idea is to always fight to solve your problem,” Hawkes concludes. “And when you play people, like me, who are not well prepared, who don’t have the tools to do it, it’s something interesting to see.”
