Hawke plays the antagonist in Moon Knight, a religious figure who considers himself merciful. He plays the character quietly and without any performance of villainy, basing the physicality on real cult leaders, which leaves the audience with an antagonist whose reasoning is coherent and whose calm is the threat.
He came to attention as a teenager in an American drama about a boarding school and has since worked across independent film, theatre and studio productions for four decades. He is also a novelist and has directed both features and documentaries, and he has worked repeatedly with a small group of directors across very long spans of time.
Recurring subjects: time and its passage, men reassessing choices decades later, and conviction examined rather than admired. He plays conversationally and resists dramatic emphasis, which is why his most extreme characters land as they do: nothing in the delivery announces what they are.
He has drawn Academy Award nominations as both performer and screenwriter, and his romantic trilogy filmed across eighteen years with the same collaborators is a landmark experiment in long form character work. His writing and directing sit alongside a substantial theatre career.
For viewers who want an antagonist who never raises his voice. Suited to anyone approaching the superhero series, and to those who should follow it with the romantic trilogy, which resembles it in no respect whatsoever.
