Ethan Hawke doesn't care what people think as he's realised that only causes him pain.
The 44-year-old star has been nominated for an Oscar four times, most recently at this year's ceremony for his role in Boyhood, but has never taken home gold. Rather than being upset about it, he insists it means nothing to him as "so much mediocrity is strung up the flagpole". He also admires Peter O'Toole, who got eight nominations but never triumphed.
"I started doing this when I was 12 and I wouldn't still be doing it if I gave a sh*t what they think. At first, it causes you pain, then, over time, you realise that most people don't know what they're talking about anyway - and that's including myself," he told ES magazine. "I've fought all my wars with caring too much about criticism, made my peace with it. I felt like Obi-Wan Kenobi at the Oscars, 'Strike me now and I'll be even stronger.'"
Despite his success, Ethan lives a relatively low-key and normal life. He likes it that way and can't understand people who chase the limelight, or enjoy putting all their personal issues into the public arena.
"Celebrity places you behind a glass wall; it's a form of isolation. If you're in prison and want to punish someone, you put them in solitary to make them go crazy. It's a hall of mirrors where you only see yourself. I've worked really hard not to live there," he said.
One of the things which might have put him off this way of life is seeing many of his good friends struggle.
He was close to River Phoenix, who died of a drug overdose in 1993 when he was 23, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who passed away last year of multiple drug intoxication.
Ethan is still dealing with the loss of both friends, explaining it's made him think about the way fame and success affects people.
"There is no scenario in my life in which what happened to River didn't have a profound effect on me. I realised that drugs are a permanent solution to a temporary problem," he said. "The two people of my generation that had the biggest effect on me as actors-artists were my friends River and Phil. I lost both to heroin, but at two very different junctures in their life. For River it was the, 'Who am I?' crisis of your twenties. Then around 40 comes, 'What are we living for?' And that's the black hole that Phil was peering into. When you achieve your dreams and that still doesn't ease your pain, then you have to ask yourself a harder set of questions."
