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By the end of The Lowdown<\/a>, Ethan Hawke\u2019s Lee Raybon has confronted many misconceptions. The truth teller\/journalist\/gadfly\/detective set out to uncover the truth about the death of a member of a powerful Tulsa political family but must acknowledge how much harm his investigation has caused. An elderly Indigenous man, played by Graham Greene, dies because of Lee\u2019s thoughtlessness, and though Lee eventually pieces the mystery together, he can\u2019t take any credit for it or even publicize most details of the crime.<\/p>\n Hawke finds Lee to be a guy not too far from himself. He, too, can\u2019t stop getting worked up about the things he knows are wrong, and he struggles to balance his curiosity and ego with the needs of the people he loves.\u00a0He is also, like Lee, a father who thinks about the relationship between what his child needs and his own pursuit of the truth, and they both think a lot about art, authenticity, and how the world works. In fact, when Hawke briefly pauses our conversation to go retrieve a toothpick from his backpack, it\u2019s not hard to see Lee Raybon in that moment \u2014 though where Lee would have grabbed any convenient toothpick,\u00a0Hawke laughs at himself for becoming so dependent on a particular flavor packaged in a glass file.\u00a0(\u201cIt\u2019s so stupid, but you go to these events as an actor, and somebody gave me these extremely cool toothpicks, and now I love them,\u201d he says.)<\/p>\n Hawke has had a busy fall. His role as tortured lyricist Lorenz Hart in the new Richard Linklater film, Blue Moon<\/a>, is \u201cprobably the most different from me I\u2019ve ever played.\u201d But Lee, he says, \u201cfeels right in my wheelhouse of who I am and who I aspire to be and who I think is funny.\u201d Hawke was eager to work again with his friend Sterlin Harjo, The Lowdown\u2019s creator and showrunner, after he fell in love with Tulsa and its creative community on the set of Harjo\u2019s previous series, Reservation Dogs<\/a>. \u201cYou felt that they were throwing a party and you were invited. You didn\u2019t feel that anybody was \u2018working,\u2019\u201d Hawke says. \u201cIt\u2019s not that they weren\u2019t working hard, but they\u2019re doing it for themselves, to make you laugh, and make you feel in the ways they thought and felt. There\u2019s so much of contemporary entertainment that feels like it\u2019s got its hand in your back pocket. It\u2019s so wonderful when somebody does something different.\u201d<\/p>\n You mentioned in another interview that Sterlin Harjo sent you the Lowdown script by asking for notes on the writing, and you were immediately annoyed because you wanted the role for yourself. What made you want to play Lee Raybon?<\/strong> You know, I was reading this biography of Sam Shepard and there was this really interesting moment when his first play was opening on Broadway and his friends kidnapped him and took him to Atlantic City. They didn\u2019t want him to become a Broadway writer. This is the guy who didn\u2019t go pick up his Pulitzer Prize, didn\u2019t go to the Oscars. That\u2019s a sensibility I grew up with, that this whole world of money and fame and stuff was so obviously fake that you weren\u2019t supposed to play along with it.<\/p>\n Lee is a father who wrestles with what his identity means for his teenage daughter. How did that element feed into your relationship to the role?\u00a0<\/strong> And I had some of that. The life of an actor was so different from what you imagine when you\u2019re 18 and wanting to do it. You don\u2019t really understand the travel aspects of it. Children and family life thrive on routine and safety, and my life has been \u2026 that\u2019s been near-impossible. So you\u2019re given this riddle that\u2019s like, Do I give up on this dream, or is there another way to skin this parenting game without absolute failure to the child?<\/p>\n The idea of parenthood and how a father\u2019s life shapes his children has been an interesting thread in your work over the past several years.\u00a0<\/strong> This connects to The Lowdown\u2019s <\/strong>fifth episode<\/strong><\/a>, in which Peter Dinklage plays Lee\u2019s longtime friend Wendell. The two are trying to reckon with how much damage they\u2019ve caused to other people and how that connects to their masculinity. How much of that was in the script when you started developing the show? How did Dinklage get involved in The Lowdown?<\/strong> I was driving across the country once, I was maybe 20 years old and was really into acting, and this friend of mine, a brilliant playwright named Jonathan Marc Sherman, said, \u201cI want you to meet the best actor of our generation.\u201d I was like, Oh yeah? All right, cool. Peter was doing some Beckett play at a college in Vermont, and we got there about midnight and I\u2019ll never forget it. The car headlights went up and there was this dude, and his hair was so long it actually dragged on the street behind him. And there he was in my headlights. And I went, \u201cThat\u2019s the best actor of my generation?\u201d My friend said, \u201cYup. Get ready.\u201d<\/p>\n In the back of my mind, I was worried Peter was doing us a favor. I directed him in a play a million years ago, and we\u2019ve been in a million workshops, and we run in the same circle but we\u2019ve never acted on film together. Sterlin was saying, \u201cI want to stop the mystery right in the middle of the show and have a whole thing on friendship, and I keep seeing Peter Dinklage.\u201d I exploded. I was like, \u201cLet\u2019s do it! I will text him right now!\u201d<\/p>\n We have lost friends. We were part of the same theater company in the \u201990s, and the backstory of our characters was so in line with the themes of our life. You can\u2019t run in the arts for 30 years and not run into the ongoing theme of addiction and loss and depression and how different people handle their sensitivity. Some try to inoculate themselves against it. It was a chance to do those scenes with him and have it not be a cameo but really give a performance. And he embraced that.<\/p>\n I was so moved to see Graham Greene in this show after <\/strong>his death earlier this fall<\/strong><\/a>. What was it like working with him?<\/strong> The Lowdown has a fascinating way of playing with the idea of Lee\u2019s goodness. He is the hero, yet by the end of <\/strong>episode seven<\/strong><\/a>, he\u2019s pursuing the land-ownership mystery even though it will hurt innocent people. And he\u2019s holding a gun in a church full of white supremacists in a way that makes clear that, in this moment, Lee is being the bad guy.\u00a0<\/strong> Even Jeanne Tripplehorn, her character\u2019s complicated too. She\u2019s a hot mess, but she\u2019s trying to keep her family together and she\u2019s really being fucked with by a lot of dubious people. Donald Washberg, Kyle MacLachlan\u2019s character, he\u2019s malevolent, but he\u2019s also kind of sweet and just playing the hand he was dealt, right? That\u2019s what makes Sterlin\u2019s world so fascinating to me.<\/p>\n Yes, and he\u2019s willing to play with tone. The show has a confident grasp of moving between gravity and humor, and I know there was a fair amount of improvisation on set. How much of that was in the script, and how much were you finding while everyone was on set?\u00a0<\/strong> I think it\u2019s part of the reason I have such a good time working on the show. I met Sterlin as a writer. We started writing something together, which is how we became friends. I had this real interest in the Apache Wars; he had an interest in that subject too, and we had a meeting and we were going on about who has the right to tell the story, you know? Getting into the weeds of that. We decided to write it together, and I really got to see how his mind works as a writer and how he loves playing with genre and the expectations of the audience. He knows exactly how to take a wrench to it and turn it at such an angle that it doesn\u2019t seem ordinary.<\/p>\n Who has the right to tell a story is such a big part of The Lowdown, too, right?\u00a0<\/strong> And the story he ends up writing isn\u2019t the one he set out to tell, either.\u00a0<\/strong> A lot of that is motivated by our lives as professional artists. How can I do what I really want to do, inside something people want to see? Learning how to compromise without losing your integrity is one of the journeys of adulthood.<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t that exactly the thing John Brown can\u2019t figure out how to do in The Good Lord Bird? Really, it\u2019s the same crux presented to those \u201990s kids we were talking about earlier, the question of whether and how much to sell out. Is that a character type you seek out, or do these roles just come to you?\u00a0<\/strong>
There\u2019s something about Lee that feels trapped in the \u201990s. And I feel that way. There\u2019s a part of me that romanticizes bookstores and places that sell LPs and zines, the whole energy and ethos I grew up with. The romantic, the person who believes in art for art\u2019s sake \u2014 not because they want to make a million dollars, not because they want to be important.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s connected to my friendship with Sterlin. With any good piece of personal work, there\u2019s a shadow-self aspect to the subconscious of the material. When Sterlin started out as a filmmaker, he didn\u2019t know if he was ever going to be able to make a living. That put him at such odds with the box society wants. There\u2019s the thing of, How can I teach a kid to follow their dreams if I don\u2019t do it? But if I do follow my dreams, I may not be able to pay my child support.<\/p>\n
I always feel that when a genre piece functions well, the action, the mystery, or the plot engine is only really relevant in so much as it affects the main character\u2019s emotional life. The event of The Lowdown is not the mystery but Lee\u2019s arrival at his ex-wife\u2019s wedding and being able to be a good man. There\u2019s something exciting about the portrait of masculinity the show offers. It\u2019s a conversation people are having all over the country right now about what positive attributes the male community can give our children. How can we be good feminists, and good truth tellers, and courageous and functioning members of our community \u2014 and still be wild? It\u2019s still the things we long to be as young people. And the same is true for the feminine, too. But this show focuses on Lee.<\/p>\n
Sterlin had this idea of a noir in Tulsa, and he had this mentor, Leroy Chapman, whom he found really exciting, and he thought, What if I took a character like that and put him in Chinatown, or The Long Goodbye? We started riffing on those themes, and the last article Lee writes in the show is called \u201cThe Sensitive Kind,\u201d about male sensitivity and how much that\u2019s perceived as our weakness and how that weakness makes us hate ourselves for our vulnerability. Male friendship had to be a part of that.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s pinched with sadness because of his passing and because he didn\u2019t strike me as old. He was so playful and fun to improvise with and full of stories. What an interesting life. I\u2019m the perfect age for Dances With Wolves, and I loved him in Thunderheart, and I followed his whole career. To see him in Reservation Dogs was so wonderful, and I thought that show ended so beautifully. To get to do scenes with him, I was in heaven. But I think it was his last performance, and it didn\u2019t feel like working with someone on their last performance. It felt like he was going to do King Lear next year. He was one of those actors who have a million ideas but they\u2019re not self-serving; they\u2019re all pitched in a way that\u2019s like, Would this help the show?<\/p>\n
This is where Sterlin gets kind of wise. Sterlin\u2019s really funny and eccentric and mysterious and has that thing some filmmakers have, which is voice. When you get to the end of the story, Lee has unquestionably done something good. He definitely has. But he\u2019s made some egregious errors. He gets people killed. I love that about the show and how all the people from Killer Mike\u2019s character to the white-supremacist mother, you know, they\u2019re all different than you think. Sterlin just can\u2019t see two-dimensionally. Can\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n
So much of it happens on set. When the scene gets boring, Sterlin just gets so bored. He loves the eccentricity of real life, the way life doesn\u2019t work in a clear narrative structure. He\u2019s always going to preserve that. It\u2019s like he writes the scripts and then he fucks with them.<\/p>\n
Yeah, Lee has a huge ego, 100 percent.<\/p>\n
It comes from real life in a lot of ways. The article Lee writes is a real compromise. He doesn\u2019t take Donald down. He doesn\u2019t do what he set out to do. He does something else that is beneficial: He gets the land by not taking Donald down. But a big part of what Lee\u2019s learning is compromise. There\u2019s an aspect to Lee that is Quixote-esque. He\u2019s chasing windmills, and he wants to be the knight. He learns that if left all alone, he\u2019s going to fuck this up. Learning to play ball a little bit while still accomplishing the mission, losing the battle to win a war, is something he learns.<\/p>\n
A little of both. You know, we all know this, that sometimes it feels like the universe is talking to you. But it depends on your orientation \u2014 what signs you hear and what you see. Can you see the way it\u2019s talking to you? What is the way the river wants you to move? If you can move with the river, life seems to go better. But if you don\u2019t, if you\u2019re just the victim of the river, you have no agency in your life. It\u2019s a balance of figuring out how to listen to your own intuition, follow your own personal ethos, and play well with others.<\/p>\n