“Although Ethan Hawke liked River Phoenix, he thought his defining quality was “naïve pretentiousness.” Hawke said, “To me, education helps you see that your weirdness is not unique. I doubt, though, that River, at age fourteen, had read a book. He thought his ideas on life and the environment were original. Because he’d never been to school, he had no social skills, and lacked a sense of what was appropriate conversation. And he had this peculiar way of anecdotalizing his past, living his life in the third person. You had the sense he was making his own mythology. I suppose we all do that, but River went to the extreme.” River PhoenixCult MentalityHomeschoolerEthan HawkeHomeschool Super FreakLackin Book:Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind Source: Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind