The Last Outlaw Poet

Am I young enough
to believe in revolution?
Am I strong enough
to get down on my knees and pray?
Am I high enough
on the chain of evolution
To respect myself
and my brother and my sister
And perfect myself
in my own peculiar way?
— "Pilgrim's Progress"

Kris Kristofferson is cut from a thicker, more intricate cloth than most celebrities today: Imagine if Brad Pitt had also written a Number One single for someone like Amy Winehouse, was considered among the finest songwriters of his generation, had been a Rhodes scholar, a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger, a boxer, a professional helicopter pilot — and was as politically outspoken as Sean Penn. That's what a motherfuckin' badass Kris Kristofferson was in 1979. And now if you go online and watch the video for his 2006 song "In the News," it's obvious he is still very much that man.

The son of an Air Force general, Kris walked to grade school barefoot in Brownsville, Texas. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Pomona College, studied William Blake and Shakespeare at Oxford, became a U.S. Army captain, was assigned to teach literature at West Point and then abruptly dropped out of the Army to become a songwriter.

Forty years later, Kristofferson is a unique figure in the history of American music and cinema. The late Sixties and the Seventies saw a creative explosion for American artists. Cinema and rock & roll were in a full-blown renaissance, and Kristofferson stood dead center in both revolutions. He wrote a Number One hit single for Janis Joplin, played at Jimi Hendrix's last concert, appeared on The Johnny Cash Show with other "new discoveries" like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, won three Grammy Awards, starred in films directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Paul Mazursky and Sam Peckinpah, and became one of the hottest male actors in the U.S. after appearing in A Star Is Born.

Then he played the lead in one of the largest commercial failures in film history, Heaven's Gate. Kris took the bullet and was shunned from the mainstream, disappearing back into the counterculture.

Today, Kris' songs have been recorded by more than 500 artists, and he has acted in more than 70 films. In 2006, at the age of 69, he released what is perhaps his finest album, This Old Road. I had been at Willie Nelson's 70th birthday concert to introduce Kristofferson, whom I had directed in the movie Chelsea Walls in 1999. After both of those experiences, I was enthralled by this man who had lived through so much success and so much failure, both personal and professional, and who had survived with his dignity intact, if not actually heightened. This Old Road motivated me to pitch Kris the idea of my making a documentary about him.

"With all that's happening in the world today, why would you want to make a film about me?" he asked over the phone. "Let me take you around to a few places I know, and we'll find some real subject matter."

I told him that I was aware the world was full of suffering but that I had just seen an old documentary about Woody Guthrie and I was damn glad someone made it.

"Yeah, I'd like to see that," he said, grudgingly. "It's just that whole hero-worship thing that bugs me. The cult of personality, you know?"

I explained that I was born in Austin, Texas, in 1970, to a 20-year-old father who did, and still does, a killer cover of "Me and Bobby McGee." My dad plays the song slower than Janis Joplin did. He pores over the lyrics, enjoying each rhyme, his voice heavy with that song's melancholy sense of loss. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," my dad will repeat, and then often add, "That may be the best song ever written." One Sunday morning, we skipped church to go see an early showing of the film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. For me, Kris has always been a part of the landscape of my country — an amalgamation of John Wayne and Walt Whitman.

As an artist who has tried more than one genre from time to time, I told Kris I felt I had a lot to learn from him, and that I didn't want to let the opportunity slip away. Eventually we agreed on a compromise: an in-depth interview about his life and work.

For the rest of Ethan Hawke's profile of Kris Kristofferson, check out the latest issue of Rolling Stone on newsstands now.