Ethan Hawke recently joined Vanity Fair for a career retrospective video interview and remained in awe that he got the chance to watch Robin Williams act on the set of 1989’s “ Dead Poets Society .” Hawke was 18 years old at the time and observed that directing Williams was “not an easy thing to do” for filmmaker Peter Weir.

“Robin is a comic genius. But dramatic acting was still new to Robin at that time,” Hawke said. “And watching that relationship like, in the room — I was four feet away while they’re talking about performance — and that was something you don’t un-see. Robin Williams didn’t do the script, and I didn’t know you could do that. If he had an idea, he just did it. He didn’t ask permission. And that was a new door that was opened to my brain, that you could play like

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