Actor John Hawkes: A familiar face to reluctant fame

NEW YORK (REUTERS) - Unlike some actors, John Hawkes dislikes being recognised and does not crave attention. It distracts people from believing his transformations, he says quietly, of which there have been many.

In role after role, he has remained anonymous, so much so that eyebrows were raised when he was nominated for best supporting actor last year for Winter's Bone. Now he is being propelled farther into the limelight in a starring role that awards voters traditionally love - a writer crippled by polio - opposite Helen Hunt in The Sessions, a feel-good inspiring indie movie aiming for wider appeal when it is released in the United States on Friday.

"There is trepidation alongside the gratitude," Hawkes said in an interview about his rising status, adding that while he "doesn't want to seem ungrateful," he knows with acclaim comes "things that are actually detrimental to being an effective actor."

The Sessions is based on the story of Mark O'Brien, an American poet and journalist who died in 1999, aged 49, who spends his days being wheeled around on a gurney and nights trapped in an iron lung. The film shows O'Brien hiring a sex therapist, played by Hunt, to lose his virginity.