Ethan Hawke says it was “awesome” to work with Scott Derrickson again.

‘The Black Phone’ star loved working again with the 55-year-old director on the horror flick - which is based on a short story by Joe Hill about a group of missing children - after they had a “great experience” collaborating on 2012’s ‘Sinister’.

The 51-year-old actor told Screen Rant: It was awesome. ‘Sinister’ was a great experience; I think it was great for him too. It was an important movie in my career. It was my first horror movie, and I was turning 40. Scott kind of reinvigorated my love of genre movies, and I learned a lot from him.”

Ethan called the two movies “siblings in a way” despite their differences.

He said: “Now, to get to work with him again... The movies are kind of siblings in a way. But, ‘Sinister’ is extremely dark; there's just a darkness to that movie. [The Black Phone], while being incredibly terrifying, has a tremendous amount of love in it. It's less cynical. You're watching this brother and sister look after each other in a malevolent world and save each other.

The ‘Reality Bites’ star labelled it now the “time to play a villain” after typically opting to not play the baddie but trusted Scott to make it “worth it”.

Ethan continued: “When he first sent the script, I was like, ‘Listen, I'm so excited that you're sending me something that I want to say yes.’ But he was telling me the character he wanted me to play, and I was like, ‘I'm never going to want to play that part. I'll read the script, but I'm never going to play that part.’ But then I read it, and I thought it was so well-written, so well-made. It was just well conceived, and I thought, "Well, maybe it is time to play a villain.

I normally never felt inclined. I just didn't want to invite that kind of energy into my imagination; I just didn't want to. But then I thought, ‘With Scott, he'll do it really well. It'll be worth it.’”