Ethan Hawke's Moon Knight Villain Has Glass In His Shoes Because Of The Cane
Warning: This post contains slight spoilers for Moon Knight episode 1.
Moon Knight's unsettling opening scene involving Arthur Harrow, his sandals, and some shards of glass was actually actor Ethan Hawke's idea. As of this Wednesday, Marvel's latest Disney+ series has officially begun, with 5 more episodes to come over the next few weeks. Moon Knight stars Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector, a mercenary with dissociative identity disorder who has been gifted special abilities by the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. While he uses these powers for mysterious purposes, one of his alters, meek Steven Grant, is shaken to realize he's at the center of a much larger plot.
Hawke plays Moon Knight's primary villain, cult leader Arthur Harrow. Even before that familiar Marvel logo appears onscreen in the first episode, he makes quite an impression on the audience thanks to a brief, but disturbing scene. Harrow sits by himself in a darkened room and, with gentle music playing in the background, breaks a glass. While some might assume he would immediately discard all the sharp fragments, he instead pours them into his sandals, then immediately puts them on his feet. It's an unsettling way to kick off a Marvel series, but it makes it clear that Moon Knight isn't joking around.
In an interview with Variety that emerged after the Moon Knight premiere, Hawke opened up about that scene and revealed its origins. Harrow's first onscreen moment wasn't actually in the script; instead, it came from Hawke's imagination after he put some serious thought into his character's motivations. When he realized Harrow would use a cane, it all came together. Hawke explained:
That [scene] really sprang out of my imagination and our conversations. When you read a comic book, some of the pages have eight drawings, some of them have 16, some have four, and then every now and then, they’ll give like the villain one full-page drawing. I kept asking the writers and directors, if it was a comic book, what would his full-page drawing be? And they were like, “What do you think it was?” I started really meditating on that, and I started thinking about spiritual people who go crazy, who get mad on their own spiritual pride, and how often that turns inward and you see that they’re secretly self-lacerating in some way and hating themselves. Because we all have sin, and the idea that somebody is free of sin is not really possible if you’re human. And so with the self-hatred and the turning inward, I had this image of him listening to a hymn while he put broken glass in his shoes, that he hid from other people.
I knew he had a cane and I kept saying, “Wait, I have a cane. Do I have a limp?” They’re like, “No, you don’t have limp.” And I thought, “Ahh, I know why he has a cane.” So I told them this idea. And this is what I mean about what was so surprising about Marvel: They’re like, “Let’s shoot that. That’s a great idea. Let’s open the show with that.” I’m like, “Okay, well, I guess these guys do want to play.”
Viewers don't have to worry about Hawke's own feet. He then went on to swear he stepped on candy glass, which turned to sand quickly. While he thankfully didn't try to go method for playing Harrow, it speaks to Hawke's work ethic and his approach to characters that he even came up with the glass idea. Moon Knight has only just begun to dig into Harrow and his motivations, but that opening scene did much to convey who he is as a person. Hawke put a lot of thought into his performance here, meaning fans have much to look forward to in the coming weeks. He's going to put on quite a show.
As Moon Knight episode 1 reveals, Harrow works in service of the goddess Ammit. He judges whether people are truly good inside and doesn't hesitate to kill anyone who has even a speck of sin on their souls. Poor Steven finds himself entangled with Harrow after waking up in the middle of one of Marc's missions, and the cult leader so far seems to be very intrigued by this mercenary/gift shop employee. As Moon Knight continues to unfold, expect to learn a lot more about Hawke's righteous villain who apparently walks around with glass in his shoes.
Moon Knight releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.
Source: Variety