If we know anything about Marvel's Moon Knight—other than the fact that we're enjoying the hell out of it—it's that the hero and villain of the series (Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke, respectively) very much enjoy each other's company.
In Esquire US's new cover story featuring Isaac, as well as his "Explain This" episode, the actor talked about his friendship with Hawke. You'll have to watch the "Explain This" interview to hear the wild story of how Isaac recruited Hawke for Moon Knight, because we're here to discuss the time the duo tripped on mushrooms together. I mean, can we get an invite?
Isaac told the story to the great Maaza Mengiste, who put such beautiful words to the tale that you need to read it for yourself. Here it is:
Isaac and Ethan Hawke at a lake in Hungary, on a break from Moon Knight rehearsals. They are tripping on mushrooms, lying in the grass, soaking in the sun. A live Phosphorescent album plays in the background, maybe on somebody’s phone. Everything is expansive, glowing, harsh lines melting and sun a cascade of light falling like stars. Oscar is floating again, back in the ocean, back at home in his mother’s house. He is somewhere between ascent and free fall, in that suspended place where the imagination rises to make contact with the divine. The music: soaring and aching, steady and gentle. The deep thrum of the bass, the reverb, the hush in the crowd audible even from this place.
When you see Moon Knight, you'll understand why Isaac and Hawke were fast friends. Even if their Marvelised relationship is of the superhero-enemy sort, their chemistry reaches the heights of the interplay between Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther, or Tony Leung and Simu Liu in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Of course, none of us know where Moon Knight's characters will go after Season One, but we're hoping that the MCU will deliver plenty of Isaac and Hawke going forward.
Check out the rest of the cover story, where Hawke told Mengiste about the magic Issac brought to his performance in Mo0n Knight. “There are some actors—and you see them in a Marvel movie, or any big studio movie—and, like, they cashed out," Hawke said. "They got to a certain level of fame and now they’re going to make a bunch of money and phone in a performance and they’ll get back to what they really love. Oscar didn’t do that. He worked on both of these characters differently."
