Seize These Dead Poets Society Secrets With No Regrets

28. In an interview, Williams revealed Dead Poets Society was one of his favorite movies he ever appeared in.

“There was something in that movie that effected people beyond just a movie,” he said. “I met a guy who said, ‘Mr. Williams, I saw the movie Dead Poets and I used to work for a major corporation, I took off my business suit, I burned it and now I own an art gallery.’ I went, ‘I have to buy a lot of art from you now!'”

In a Reddit AMA, he revealed Weir was one of his favorite directors he’d ever worked with. For Weir, in a 1990 interview, he said he knew the comedic actor could play the “quieter, more thoughtful” Keating because he “had met that quieter, more thoughtful and funny man” when he first met Williams. 

29. After Williams’ tragic death in 19, the words “O Captain, my Captain” took on a whole new meaning, with many tributes using the infamous Dead Poets Society line to pay homage to the actor. But it especially took on new meaning for Hawke, who said the line that had so often been repeated back to him by fans over the years. 

“When he died, I read that whole poem and it’s kind of devastating,” he told Vanity Fair of the Walt Whitman poem. 

30. When filming first began, Hawke believed Williams didn’t like him, as he was trying to stay in character, much to the improv-loving actor’s chagrin. “The more I didn’t laugh, the more insane he got,” Hawke recalled. “So I thought he hated me because he would constantly lay into me.” Of course, he didn’t, with Hawke receiving a phone call from Williams’ agent after the movie that would change his career forever.

“‘[Williams] says that you’re going to be somebody and that I should sign you,'” he recalled. “He got my my first agent and he’s still my agent now.”