In order to put “bread on the table,” Ethan Hawke claimed he joined up for Marvel’s Moon Knight.
After finishing his work as director of the documentary series The Last Movie Stars, which examined the lives and careers of Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward, the actor who played religious fanatic Arthur Harrow in the Disney+ series was questioned about his role in the production.
Hawke claimed that his choice to accept Moon Knight was motivated by Newman because he felt it’s what he would have done.
“I remember I was sitting at my dinner table and I had just been offered Moon Knight and I was trying to decide whether to do that or not,” Hawke said. “And my youngest, Indiana, who was 10 at the time, said, ‘Well, Dad, what would Paul do?’”
Although Newman later in his career appeared in some blockbusters, such as The Towering Inferno, he is best recognized for his parts in classics like Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and The Hustler.
“Do I think he admired blockbusters and superhero movies? No, I don’t,” Hawke said about Newman. “He hated doing Towering Inferno. That was his idea of a giant sellout. You see him in physical pain in that movie.”
He added: “But, it’s still a job. You still have to put food on the table.
“I am an actor. That is how I pay my kids’ medical bills, that’s how I put a roof over our heads. And my job is not to change the world and make it the perfect place. My job is to do good work to the best of my ability. So we all decided, ‘I think you should do it.’ And I’m glad I did.”
In addition to Hawke, Moon Knight starred Oscar Isaac as the title character, who has dissociative identity disorder and alternates between the personalities of Steven Grant and Marc Spector.
“With Moon Knight, they’ve finally hit on the perfect formula,” NME noted in a five-star review. It’s a series that never fails to resemble a massive summer movie yet isn’t scared to last for six hours as opposed to only two.
“It’s a spectacular character-piece dressed up as a swashbuckler with at least a couple of the characters Isaac was born to portray, always pushing into unexpected places and never reluctant to delve into the dark.”