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 w

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