Ethan Hawke says shooting “The Weight ”was ‘one of the hardest summers of my life’: See first look

Ethan Hawke‘s upcoming action-drama The Weight is a throwback to a bygone era in more ways than one.

Set in the Great Depression, the film follows Samuel Murphy (Hawke), a down-on-his-luck widower with a young daughter who loses his home and then his freedom after punching what turns out to be an undercover cop. In a desperate attempt to get out of prison and save his daughter from an orphanage, he makes a deal with Russell Crowe‘s Warden Clancy to help smuggle gold through the wilderness in return for his early release.

“This started very strangely when I was doing the Newman-Woodward doc,” Hawke tells Entertainment Weekly ahead of the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. “I was watching all these older movies, and I got thinking about why there was a genre of action movie that was around in the ‘60s and ‘70s that were character-driven action movies.”

Citing films like Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Sorcerer (1977), Hawke says, “There were action movies where not a lot of s— blows up. They’re about people, but they’re high stakes.”

So, he teamed up with director Padraic McKinley, whom he worked with on the Showtime miniseries The Good Lord Bird, to create their own homage to that era and style of filmmaking. “We started riffing on why there aren’t any great Paul Newman, Steve McQueen kind of action movies anymore,” he explains. “I was like, before I get too old, I really wanna make one.”

Murphy himself is also a relic of an earlier time. “It’s an old-fashioned idea of the principled man,” Hawke explains. “I’m really interested in trying to put forth a story right now about positive manifestations of masculinity, and like, what is dignity, empowering others, taking care of others, fatherhood, serving. Those kinds of old-fashioned principles, and then set them in an action genre, and have a person’s integrity tested.”

It’s an archetype that Hawke has been chasing for years. “My whole career, I’ve had things in my brain where I see a kind of character I haven’t been able to play before that I think I can, and I’m out hunting for it,” he says.

In developing Murphy, he drew on his grandfather, stepfather, and another positive male role model from his childhood, who “never said a word” but was “so good at everything that mattered. He knew how to make a fire. He knew how to make a bow and arrow.” In short, “the kind of guy who didn’t talk much, but gets s— done.” 

“I found him so impressive,” adds the actor. “I long for that in myself, and I enjoy playing aspirational characters.”

Speaking of Hawke’s understated but powerful presence in the film, McKinley says, “A lot of his bigger, louder performances are incredible, which is why it was such a thrill to see him play Murphy — quiet, studied, and stoic. I don’t know what it is, but you never want to cut away from him, even when he’s doing almost nothing on the surface.”

Hawke likens Murphy’s plight to that of Odysseus, a character on an epic journey who overcomes obstacles with his wits and encounters colorful characters. With Murphy on his gold smuggling mission are fellow convicts Olson (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen), Singh (Avi Nash), and Rankin (Austin Amelio), and their armed handlers, Amis (Sam Hazeldine) and Big (Jeffrey Lee Hallman). Along the way, they encounter strangers like Cameron Brady’s shady woodsman, and Julia Jones’ Anna, a Native American woman who joins their troupe and develops a bond with Murphy.

“For me, a character doesn’t really become clear in and of itself; it comes clear in relationship to other people,” Hawke says of his costars. “I learned about Murphy through Austin Emilio. I just love his acting. And between Russell and Julia and Austin, Murphy started to appear to me.”

While The Weight might not be filled with explosions or high-speed chases, it does feature some intense, visceral action sequences that tested Hawke’s endurance. One heartpounding sequence sees Murphy lead the group through a frigid river, where they become caught up in a flow of massive, floating trees from a logging operation upstream.

“This was one of the hardest summers of my life,” Hawke admits of the shoot. “Being in the water, being in the woods, I keep saying, ‘Oh, it’s an action movie without that much action,’ but it was exhausting. Just worrying about the ticks alone.”

“It was genuinely hard to watch the actors in the river,” McKinley says. “The water was just above freezing, and I was the one responsible for asking them to go again — and again. The surface was jagged, full of boulders and sharp rocks, with really unforgiving footing.”

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Filmed over six weeks in the Bavarian forest (the film itself takes place in Oregon), Hawke says the “adventure aspect” of the shoot reminded him of an earlier film in his career. “When I was a kid, I did this movie, White Fang, where I went to Alaska for six months,” he says of the 1991 film based on the Jack London classic. “It was so romantic. It was a life-changing experience for me. And I’m still hungry for this kind of experience where you take a camera into the wild and come out with a movie.”

The Weight premieres on Jan. 26 at Sundance. 

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