Ethan Hawke attends The Weight New York screening at the Museum of Modern Art on September 15, 2026 in New York City. John Lamparski/Getty Images Logo text Ethan Hawke’s The Weight is proof they can still make them like they used to.
Hawke remembers his 19-year-old self trudging through snowy Alaska for White Fang. He remembers cruising around Los Angeles with Denzel Washington in a 1979 Chevy Monte Carlo for Training Day. Those experiences, among many others, taught him the value of real-world immersion, something that’s gotten lost in an age of manufactured environments and digital backdrops. There’s an unreplicable quality to putting actors in an actual place and letting the location become another character in the story.
Related Stories
TV 'The Lowdown' Reveals Season 2 Storyline and Premiere Date
Movies Richard Linklater Looks Back at 'Boyhood,' 12 Years Later: "Time Never Quits Working on Us"
For The Weight, Hawke and director Padraic McKinley put that philosophy into practice, taking the former’s incarcerated character, Sam Murphy, and a group of fellow gold-smuggling convicts deep into the Bavarian Forest, which stands in for the 1930s Oregon wilderness.
“50 percent of [Training Day] is Denzel and I driving around in a car. If we had done that in front of a green screen, it would be such a lesser version of that film. And while it’s hard to articulate why, it just smells bad,” Hawke tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of The Weight’s Sept. 18 theatrical release. “That’s one example of all the ways in which people try to let a computer make a movie for them. It just cheapens the whole thing. It’s not like it can’t be done. Of course, it can be done if the writing is really exceptional.”
When The Weight introduces Hawke’s character — a World War I veteran and widowed single father — he’s barely able to care for his young daughter amid the Great Depression. Then a misunderstanding involving two corrupt cops lands him in prison, and his sentence is long enough that he’s going to lose custody of his daughter before he’s released. That is, until Russell Crowe’s Warden Clancy offers Murphy an under-the-table deal. If Murphy helps him steal gold before Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order requires its surrender as part of an effort to halt economic deflation, Clancy will grant him an early release, giving him a chance to keep his daughter from falling through the cracks of the system.
While some might argue that Murphy is an antihero, Hawke viewed him as an honorable man. He saw characteristics that reminded him of his World War II veteran grandfather and the generation he belonged to, often referred to as the “Greatest Generation.” Hawke wanted to bring those ideals to the fore at a time when they’ve become increasingly scarce.
“That whole generation’s old-fashioned American ethics — the unwavering belief in the equality of mankind and pulling together for each other — was the spirit that my grandfather took with him. I really wanted to play a character who represented that,” Hawke says. “It’s fun to tell a good antihero story, but I’ve been missing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or It’s a Wonderful Life. Even the classic Western is built on a man of principle, humility, integrity, dignity and respect for others. So I for sure wanted to put that into the universe right now.”
The Weight also gave Hawke the chance to finally work with Crowe, a performer he’s long admired. As it turns out, they nearly worked together more than two decades earlier, when Hawke was in contention for Paul Bettany’s role in Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). Weir had previously directed Hawke’s breakout performance in Dead Poets Society (1989).
“I’ve always wanted to work with [Crowe]. The only time it ever came up was Master and Commander,” Hawke shares. “I really wanted the Paul Bettany part in that film. Of course, Paul Bettany was brilliant, but that was the only time it came close to happening.”
On the opposite end of the Murphy spectrum, Hawke has received rave reviews for his two turns as the devilish “Grabber” in Scott Derrickson’s two highly successful Black Phone films. Hollywood generally abides by the rule of three, so Hawke says a trilogy depends on Derrickson. “If he has an idea that excites him, then I’m sure everybody would get on board,” Hawke adds. “He’s not going to do it as a cash grab. He’ll do it if he has a way to express himself.”
The last time this writer caught up with Hawke was for another villainous role opposite Oscar Isaac in Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight. The now-limited series was developed during the 2018–21 streaming boom, when the entire industry invested heavily to fill the shelves of its own platforms, hoping to boost their stock valuations à la Netflix. The timing proved fortuitous, as streaming helped their stock prices remain at relatively high levels while movie theaters stayed closed throughout much of the pandemic-stricken 2020.
Moon Knight was one of 17-some-odd shows Marvel developed and released under Disney’s streaming mandate, which began in 2018. But that all changed when the streaming bubble burst on Wall Street in April 2022. Consequently, Disney pumped the brakes on its streaming output, leaving characters like Hawke’s Arthur Harrow and Isaac’s multifaceted Moon Knight in MCU limbo. Previously, a Marvel role all but guaranteed a decade’s worth of return engagements.
“I never had a big agenda about being in that universe. But I was kind of surprised [by the streaming correction],” Hawke admits. “None of us can exactly see the future. The future hasn’t gone the way that I thought it would in that regard, but that’s never been my bread and butter anyway.”
For Hawke, the silver lining was having the availability to commit to Sterlin Harjo’s FX crime dramedy, The Lowdown. The acclaimed show returns for a two-episode season two premiere on Oct. 14.
“What I love about my current show, The Lowdown, is that Sterlin is a filmmaker who uses television to push cinema. It’s not the television that I grew up watching; it’s something else,” Hawke says. “So I’m really happy that I found myself in The Lowdown. I feel like I’ve fallen into the place where I’m supposed to be.”
Below, Hawke also discusses with THR how running his production company, Under the Influence, with his wife, Ryan Hawke, has led to the most satisfying stretch of his career.
***
It’s so nice to watch a film like The Weight that actually went somewhere and braved the elements. It’s no longer the default way of doing things, so I relish it whenever I can get it. Have you felt that shift on your side of the line?
Oh yeah. You could really get me going about this. One of the things that people love to do right now, because driving shots are so difficult, is just throw you in a car with a big green screen behind you. The computer then creates the background. It works well enough that viewers don’t really know that it’s fake; they just think the acting is bad. It doesn’t feel real. We’re very sensitive creatures. We understand non-verbally what people are communicating to us all the time.
Take a movie like Training Day. 50 percent of that movie is Denzel and I driving around in a car. But we’re really driving around in a car, and it feels that way. If we had done that in front of a green screen, it wouldn’t be the movie. It would be such a lesser version of that film, and while it’s hard to articulate why, it just smells bad.
That’s one example of all the ways in which people try to let a computer make a movie for them. It just cheapens the whole thing. It’s not like it can’t be done. Of course, it can be done if the writing is really exceptional. There are good things that it does. Yeah, it makes amazing dragons, and I love dragons, but I’d like to see a real dragon.
Ethan Hawke’s Murphy and Austin Amelio’s Rankin in The Weight. Matteo Cocco/Courtesy of Sundance If you had to rank your most challenging shoots, has The Weight officially dethroned White Fang?
Probably. Luckily, at the age I’m at now, I knew what I was getting myself into [unlike at 19 on White Fang]. But as the years passed since White Fang, I missed the adventure of it. As difficult as it was, I still remember going fishing with the crew on Saturday and having dances on Saturday night. There’s a camaraderie that’s built when you really go on an adventure with a group of people, and you see it manifest in the film. It’s not fun in the moment, but it’s fun when it’s over.
Jason Blum is thanked in The Weight’s credits, and I recently read the story of how guys got stranded in a snow field before the Sundance premiere of Reality Bites. Was that your greatest real-life duel with mother nature?
(Laughs.) It was really, really stupid. We went joyriding, and I decided to do a donut in a field out in the middle of nowhere. Then the car got stuck in the snow on literally an abandoned farm road, and we couldn’t get the car out. We just got in the car to have some fun, so we were barefoot [in pajamas and no coats] — and I had a half a pack of cigarettes. This is what you do when you’re 23.
The sun started going down, and the car was slowly running out of gas while we were trying to figure out how to get it out of this abandoned field. If anybody has read Jack London’s To Build a Fire, I thought we might freeze to death. I was not only going to miss the premiere of Reality Bites, but I was also going to be dead. So Jason was a great partner in that, and we kept our spirits up for a while until we eventually got out [by shoveling snow with our bare hands].
Your Weight character, Sam Murphy, is highly intelligent, and yet, as one character says to him, “If you’re so smart, what are you doing here?”
(Laughs.)
Is he snake-bit? Or is he just a product of the times?
That’s a great question. I think he’s very much representative of the [Great Depression] era and what happens when people in positions of power are obsessed with greed and status. They’re careless about their effect on others.
My grandfather was a Depression-era kid, and I grew up hearing all those stories. I could see the strength of his character and what kind of person he was. He wasn’t a superficial person. He was a World War II vet. That whole generation’s old-fashioned American ethics — the unwavering belief in the equality of mankind and pulling together for each other — was the spirit that my grandfather took with him.
I really wanted to play a character who represented that. Murphy is in a really tough situation. He does screw up, but he has no net underneath him. He can’t afford a lawyer, and the system is designed to screw him. So he gets screwed, and he’s trying to unscrew it.
Ethan Hawke’s Murphy in The Weight Vertical I’ve talked to a few people lately who’ve written a lot of antiheroes in their careers, and they’re all glad to be writing more traditional heroes right now, especially right now. So it sounds like Murphy had a similar appeal to you.
It’s been top of my mind as well. It’s fun to tell a good antihero story, but I’ve been missing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or It’s a Wonderful Life. Even the classic Western is built on a man of principle, humility, integrity, dignity and respect for others. So I for sure wanted to put that into the universe right now.
It’s hard to believe you and Russell Crowe hadn’t worked together before The Weight. I theorized that it might be because you both went out for the same parts, but then I couldn’t really find any examples. He’s also got some years on you so maybe that precluded the same roles. Did you ever get close on anything?
God, I still remember seeing Romper Stomper and L.A. Confidential. He’s just been an inspiration to me as an actor. Master and Commander is not only one of my favorite Peter Weir films, but it’s also one of my favorite films. He’s a phenomenal force and presence in dramatic acting. So I’ve always wanted to work with him. The only time it ever came up was Master and Commander. I really wanted the Paul Bettany part in that film. Of course, Paul Bettany was brilliant, but that was the only time it came close to happening.
Before he was incarcerated, Murphy and his daughter were clearly struggling without her mother. He tries to mend her sock and does a shoddy job. You, on the other hand, had Ryan Hawke with you as a boots-on-the-ground producer. Could you have made this movie without her?
No, it wouldn’t have happened. [Director] Padraic McKinley and I really wanted to make this movie for a few years, but she and [producer] Simon Fields worked for years to find a way for it to happen. I’ve been working with my wife for 15 years now, and having somebody who I really respect, who understands me and tries to make projects happen that otherwise wouldn’t have happened, it’s been the best chapter of my professional career.
There’s a period of your life as an actor where you hope that somebody sends you something good, and you hope you can get the job and contribute. Then you might get to a position where you can help a movie exist that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. So we run this little mom-and-pop production company called Under the Influence, and The Weight is one of the projects that she worked the hardest on to make happen. So I’m really grateful because I love the movie.
Did Richard Linklater take an interest in the fact that you and Austin Amelio were working together on The Weight? Did you, in turn, hire Austin on The Lowdown season two?
I saw Everybody Wants Some!!, and I met Austin at the time. I then saw Hit Man, and I thought Austin’s performance was off the hook. It was an incredible performance, so I thought of him immediately for The Weight. I did call Rick [Linklater] who said, “If you can get him, get him. Do anything you can to get him.” In a lot of ways, Austin talks more in The Weight than I do. He’s got a huge part in this movie. I knew Russell’s part, Julia’s [Jones] part and Austin’s parts were essential. If the film was going to work, it needed a great actor in each one of those parts. So Austin and I had such a good time on The Weight that I told [creator] Sterlin [Harjo] about him, and now he’s got an amazing part in The Lowdown season two.
I’m really proud of this next segue. Austin’s character references Wild Bill Hickok, and that reminded me of your Black Phone character, The Grabber, who modeled himself after Wild Bill Hickok.
(Laughs.)
Do you, Jason and Scott Derrickson have an interest in completing that trilogy someday?
That would be entirely up to Scott Derrickson. Jason and I both believe in him. He’s an amazing director. If he has an idea that excites him, then I’m sure everybody would get on board. He’s not going to do it as a cash grab. He’ll do it if he has a way to express himself.
Ethan Hawke as The Grabber in Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone Courtesy of Universal Studios I wondered if you wanted the Before trilogy to be your only trilogy, but I think Black Phone deserves it.
We’ll see!
I last spoke to you for Moon Knight, and it’s so interesting what’s happened since then. The entire industry, including Disney/Marvel, had already gone all-in on streaming, and from 2018 to 2021, Marvel developed a robust slate of shows. But then there was a market correction in April 2022, and the economics no longer made sense to keep that streaming output going. So now Marvel has all these characters and storylines twisting in the wind including your character and Oscar Isaac’s character. Are you remotely fazed by the fact that Marvel has not been a hotbed of employment for you? Or did it serve its purpose?
I haven’t really thought about it. I never had a big agenda about being in that universe. My reason to do that show was largely built on my friendship with Oscar. He’s a really thrilling actor. I like the way he thinks, and he really wanted a good villain for that show.
I was also interested in playing in the sandbox that everybody was watching. Part of being an artist is you have to make relevant art. You have to be in dialogue and in concert with your time. Marvel has owned a chapter of cinema history, so I enjoyed being a part of it. They were really good to me.
But I was kind of surprised [by the streaming correction]. I respond to the way the industry changes too, and none of us can exactly see the future. The future hasn’t gone the way that I thought it would in that regard, but that’s never been my bread and butter anyway. That’s not really what I do.
What I love about my current show, The Lowdown, is that Sterlin is a filmmaker who uses television to push cinema. It’s not the television that I grew up watching; it’s something else. Yeah, it’s not a feature film, but it has theme and metaphor. It has a beginning, middle and end — and it’s about something. So I’m really happy that I found myself in The Lowdown. I feel like I’ve fallen into the place where I’m supposed to be.
*** The Weight opens in movie theaters on September 18.
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe Sign Up
