Ethan Hawke recently pulled back the curtain on his upcoming role in Disney+'s Moon Knight to discuss what exactly inspired him to play the villain in the new Marvel Studios series.
"Your gut leads you," Hawke told Entertainment Weekly while discussing his character's motivations. "The uber-rich villain mastermind isn't interesting to me. I love the ones who believe that they're a good person and that's why they have to kill you. That, I find really terrifying."
The first official trailer for Moon Knight dropped earlier this month, offering a glimpse at the mind-bending, superhero action the show has in store. The clip also quietly revealed Hawke's villainous role, as the closed captions revealed Hawke will be playing one of Moon Knight's first foes, Dr. Arthur Harrow. Harrow first appeared in Moon Knight #2 by Alan Zelenetz and Chris Warner, where the Nobel Prize-winning scientist is confronted by Moon Knight for performing illegal experiments on humans that deprive them of feeling pain.
While Hawke has yet to confirm that he'll be playing Harrow, the actor shed some light on what fans can expect from his villainous turn during an interview last summer. Specifically, Hawke revealed that the leader of the Branch Davidians religious cult, David Koresh, was a "source of great character inspiration." The Branch Davidians were famously involved in the Waco siege of 1993.
During that same interview, Hawke also compared the experience of filming a big-budget project like Moon Knight versus the many smaller, independent projects he's worked on throughout his long career. "I've been acting since I was 13. Like I did my first movie in 1985, okay? And that's a long time ago," Hawke said at the time. "And these are the best sets I've ever been on in my life. The costume, the set, the production design, the cinematography, all those elements are kind of mind-boggling. So I have entered some alternate universe and it is kind of interesting."
While details about Hawke's take on Harrow have been kept under wraps, the actor has previously described keeping Marvel secrets to be "difficult" and admitted he's shared spoilers with one other person: his son. "My son has to know everything," Hawke said during an interview last year. "He's nineteen. He was the perfect age for the Marvel Universe. He came of age as that whole explosion has happened. So whenever I needed to know, like, the backstory behind this god or this character, he's like, 'Ah, Dad! No, no, no, no, let me correct you on that.' So he was my go-to resource."
Moon Knight is currently scheduled to premiere on Disney+ on March 30.
Source: Entertainment Weekly