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Ethan Hawke explains how he created his ‘Moon Knight’ villain

Hawke leaned into the spiritual and parts of how the comic medium has presented itself over the years for his Arthur Harrow.

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Marvel’s Moon Knight will be out this Wednesday on Disney Plus and will bring Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke into the Cinematic Universe. Hawke will be Isaac’s antagonist and now, he has talked about how he constructed his evil character.

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I love comic books. So, I went to the directors and said, ‘if you were looking at a really good comic book, there’s usually one full-page drawing of the villain.’ Whether a page has four drawings, eight drawings, every now and then there will be a full-page drawing. So, I was like, ‘what would the full-page drawing be that introduces Harrow? What is his secret that you want to let the audience in on?’

The Oscar-nominated actor made the comments in a discussion with The Hollywood Reporter published yesterday. After sharing his initial queries to the production team, Hawke said they asked him to share what he thought his Arthur Harrow’s secret was and, in response, Hawke invoked behavior practised by devoutly religious people of past and present.

I was always hypnotized by deeply spiritual people who were self-lacerating. You hear stories about all these saints and how they would wear hair shirts or whip themselves. So, I always was like, ‘I thought we were supposed to love each other and be kind. What is all this self-immolation? What is that about?’ So, I had this vision of him pouring glass in his shoes and listening to Bob Dylan. And then I explained that to them, and they were like, ‘let’s do that!’ And I was like, ‘alright!’

Now that is intense! Here’s hoping Hawke’s intentions connect with viewers like he wanted it to, and the show resonates with viewers like. Oscar Isaac is hoping that it will have Iron Man level impact but we’ll just have to wait and see for when the show releases on March 30.