00:00Welcome to Charlotte, Ethan Hawke. How are you?
00:04Yeah, good. Thanks for having me. I love Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:08I was going to ask. We always love asking our guests, you know, what their Charlotte story is.
00:12And like, you know, a lot of the guests will say, oh, I love the airport and I've been there for 40 minutes and connected somewhere else.
00:21No, I've made a couple of movies there in my life.
00:24Um, but, uh, so I, I had, I made the original black phone there, had an amazing time.
00:32I lived on the, on the beach and, uh, had this amazing house and, you know, it was the pandemic and everybody was miserable, but we had this killer house on the beach and I had the best time.
00:43That's so cool. That's so cool. Uh, the low down, the FX is low down executive produced by the man right here, Ethan Hawke.
00:51The finales tonight. Um, I have to ask, I feel like episodes of shows are running shorter than they used to like, like weren't networks buying 13 episodes, but now lately, like, like great shows like yours and other shows that I love so much are running, you know, eight episodes or sometimes splitting.
01:12And then like an additional three will come out in a couple of weeks. What's, what's the, the thinking behind that, Ethan?
01:17Well, it has to do with streaming. You know, it used to be that now that there's such flexibility and how long things are.
01:26And it, it, it used to be when I was growing up, you know, there was a lock. It had to be exactly one hour, 45 minutes of entertainment for 15 minutes of commercials.
01:35And you needed to have X many episodes of the network wouldn't air it. And it has to do with the people who are making these shows, trying to protect quality of it. You know, we, when we're making it, if it's 12 episodes is going to end up being a lot of water in your beer.
01:52You know, the idea is if you can make, if you can create the right amount of episodes so that the story doesn't have any water in the beer, that's the basic idea.
02:02And with this show, we thought we had a really great story that was eight episodes long. And if it was too much longer, we were going to be spinning our wheels for you.
02:11Ethan, when you take on a project like this and you are an executive producer and you're, you know, the actor in the project as well, how hard is it to kind of, I guess, back up and give yourself the constructive criticism and, you know, work both sides of the industry?
02:30Ethan Well, it's not hard at all in this case because Sterling Harjo is the creator of the show. He made Reservation Dogs and he's really the reason I did this show. He's really brilliant.
02:43And I, I really wanted to be an executive producer on the show for largely two reasons. One is to help protect him because, you know, the more, more money that's coming in from studios and the more pressure you have, the harder it is to maintain the integrity of the artistic goals of the show.
03:01And secondly, I'd never been in a TV show. And so I never accepted a part where I hadn't read all the scripts. You know, I didn't, and I wanted to be a part of the kitchen to make sure that I liked the scripts.
03:13You know, I didn't, I didn't really want to be a gun for hire and I wanted to be Sterling's partner. I love that guy.
03:19That's interesting. I never thought of that, Loren and Big Al, like what Ethan just said, which is like, when you get a movie, you get the full script, but when you, when you're doing a TV show, you're not getting the full script.
03:28That's, and that's why so many actors sometimes end up unhappy on TV shows, you know, because you thought the character was going more this way.
03:36And then you start getting writing that you like less and it, it's harder for your imagination to get around it all.
03:41And this way I just, I get to be right sitting shotgun next to Sterling and we get to create Lee and we get to create the show together.
03:50And it feels, it feels more like you're part of a band, you know, and he's definitely in charge.
03:57He does a great job. He's, he's a brilliant man. And his whole worldview, he's bringing all his friends from Tulsa.
04:06He and I have even known each other. We've actually known each other for a long time.
04:09So this whole thing happened really organically.
04:14Tulsa's the hotbed now for shows, you know, Sly did his show there. You're doing your show.
04:20Hey, but Sly didn't shoot his in Tulsa, you know, you did, you did.
04:26Oh yeah, we did. We made ours all in Tulsa, all with Tulsa locals, you know, have, you know, Tim Blake Nelson's from Tulsa.
04:33Tracy Letts is from Tulsa. Gene Triplehorn's from Tulsa. This is a Tulsa show through and through.
04:39It's great.
04:39I have a question. You've done everything from like big studio stuff to small indie projects and everything in between.
04:45So what's like one thing that you will not compromise when you pick up a project?
04:52You know, really it's the writing, you know, actors are only as good as their opportunity.
04:59You know, if the writing isn't there for you, you cannot excel.
05:03You know, if, if the thing is just built poorly, it's never going to work.
05:07It doesn't matter what the budget is. It doesn't matter who your co-star is.
05:11It doesn't matter how fabulous the director is. If the, you know, if the DNA of the plan is not a good plan, it's not going to fly.
05:19And if you have a great script, you can do it for, you can make it on your phone.
05:23If you have a great script, you can, it can withstand notes from the studio or dumbing.
05:29You know, it's like, it's all in what the, what the map is.
05:33Do you have a genre that you lean more towards, like that you're comfortable in if it's, you know, horror, drama, comic, like what is your ultimate project?
05:46What do you lean towards?
05:47I think what I figured out when I was younger that I'm happy about was that I wasn't such a fabulous actor that I could just be one of those shamanistic people who can change, shape change themselves.
06:01The ways that I thought I could excel is that I really do love, I love movies.
06:06I love a horror movie. I love a comedy. I love an art film. I love a cop picture. I love a noir.
06:15And I thought the ways that I could push myself as an actor was to be in a variety of different kinds of movies.
06:22And now over the course of my life, I've been allowed to do that. You know, I've been in Westerns.
06:26I've been in sci-fi movies and, and it's a way to keep myself interested.
06:31I don't feel like I'm repeating myself and, um, I stay curious my, and, and when you're curious and having fun, I think it shows in the work and that's what I've tried to do.
06:42So I really just don't have a favorite. Um, I know when we do it well, and I know what, when we do it poorly, but you know, that's about it.
06:52Ethan, you've been nominated for so many different awards, including the Academy. And I'm wondering, does that, does that mean anything to you?
07:04I know like a lot of actors in interviews that I hear, or, you know, I watch these interviews and I'm wondering like if the awards really make you feel any different about yourself moving to the next role.
07:15I'm sure the, I'm sure your agent loves it, but yeah, you know, it's a funny thing. We all feel this way about society and culture. Society respects it. So you'd be an idiot not to want it. You know, it's like, oh, if you know, we see it in athletics world series MVP, you know, and then that person carries that badge with them and they get introduced with it every time.
07:40And you know what it takes to play the game well, and you know, anybody with a brain in their nose that you don't win an Oscar alone. You win an Oscar because you had a great costume designer. You win an Oscar because you have a great script. You win an Oscar because a DP is brilliant.
07:55You know, the same way you win a Super Bowl just because you're great. It's a, it's a team sport or those are team sports and, and making movies is a team game. It's, it's such a collaborative medium.
08:07And so, you know, those things are a bit of a lie, but you also know their status symbols and they help grease the rails for your future projects in there.
08:16Everybody wants pins on their chest.
08:19Yeah.
08:20But you also got to be smart and keep it in the right place in your brain because there's lots of, I mean, there's brilliant legions of brilliant musicians that don't have a Grammy, right?
08:32And there's lots of musicians that have four Grammys that aren't so hot.
08:37It doesn't define who you are. It doesn't define who you are.
08:40It can't define who you are.
08:41It does define how society sees you. And that's real.
08:45Yeah. Yeah. Well, not that it means anything to you, but we were voted Charlotte's best morning radio program.
08:51Really?
08:52Four years running.
08:53We had to throw that in there.
08:54Yeah.
08:55I just have to tell you guys what an honor it is to be on Charlotte's best radio program.
09:00I am privileged to be with these award-winning journalists.
09:04You'll one day, you'll be an award winner one day, Ethan, and you'll know how it feels, buddy.
09:08All right. Thank you, brother. I look forward to that day.
09:11The lowdown tonight, FX also flipping over to Hulu so you can stream it there.
09:16I know you've got to run, but just real quick, you love this finale.
09:20You're happy with the way everything turned out?
09:22I'm thrilled with it. I wouldn't be getting up early doing these videos.
09:25I'm so thrilled with it. I want people to make it to the end because I love the ending so much.
09:29We're loving it. We're loving it. Thanks for your time here in Charlotte.
09:32Ethan Hawke, everyone. The lowdown. All the best, buddy. We appreciate you.
09:35Thanks, Ethan.
09:36Take care.
09:46Thanks for watching. Make sure you subscribe to our channel and like this video.
09:49If you want to see more videos, you can always check out our behind-the-scenes content or our War of the Roses.
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