In actual life, Ethan Hawke doesn’t go around getting his butt kicked.
But viewers of “The Lowdown” have watched his character, Lee Raybon, take repeated punches in the title of uncovering the reality. Now back for a second season on FX, Hawke is once again getting his (literal) kicks enjoying Raybon, the used bookseller and “truth-storian” at the heart of the show, a noir drama with comedic components set in the secret backrooms of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In a chat with The Post, Hawke in contrast making the show with creator Sterlin Harjo to “jumping off a cliff together.” When he signed on, there was just one episode with a full script. “It was a bet about what themes we wanted to talk about, and the tone of the show, and what we both wanted Lee to be like.”
Ethan Hawke seems as Lee Raybon in FX’s “The Lowdown.” FX
The five-time Oscar nominee — who grew to become well-known for Nineteen Nineties hits like “Dead Poets Society” and “Reality Bites,” but stored returning to indie theater and smaller, stranger initiatives — advised The Post that after working with Harjo on his critically acclaimed TV show, “Reservation Dogs,” he was hooked on a future collaboration.
“We kind of auditioned each other,” he defined. “Afterwards, we felt really strongly that we needed to work together again.”
That “need” grew to become Season 1 of “The Lowdown,” where Hawke spun Lee Raybon into a fascinating, but bumbling hero with a nostril for corruption — and a motormouth that usually labored extra time to undo the hassle he’d talked himself into.
The foremost plot had Lee poking into the supposed suicide of a gubernatorial candidate’s brother and uncovering the murky real estate dealings of some shifty businessmen. He pulled at threads and discovered both tales were woven collectively with a lot of hazard hooked up.
Hawke and “Lowdown” showrunner Sterlin Harjo. Sterlin Harjo / Instagram
Reviews of “The Lowdown” were overwhelmingly great — the show at present boasts a 98% approval ranking on Rotten Tomatoes — and Harjo and Hawke brainstormed Season 2 while on the initial show’s press tour.
“Ethan and I talked about how accomplishing something and then getting recognition changes your life and can actually send people into a tailspin,” Harjo said, noting that he drew on his own emotions after “Reservation Dogs” grew to become a essential darling.
Early in the season premiere, Lee gives an embarrassing, drunken, drug-fueled acceptance speech for a journalism award. “I think that all of your traumas come up in those instances,” Harjo admitted.
In Season 2, Lee is also dealing with the sudden arrival of his ne’er-do-well father, Lee Sr. (Tommy Lee Jones), who makes it clear where Hawke’s character inherited his nostril for chaos. Hawke performs Lee like an uncovered nerve this season, particularly as his father’s arrival brings outdated ache to the floor.
The actor advised The Post that all through Season 1, he questioned “why Lee doesn’t want to grow up and why can’t he handle success.” But, he said, “One look at Tommy Lee Jones’ face and you see it.”
Harjo added that Lee acknowledges himself in his father’s conduct. “It’s the version of himself that he doesn’t want to be.”
New additions to “The Lowdown” also have Hawke confronting his previous in a more personal method:
Season 2 also gives a greater position to Keith David, who first appeared with Hawke in “Reality Bites” in 1994, performed non-public investigator Marty Brunner in Season 1; he tells The Post that he took the position in half because enjoying a TV detective was on his bucket listing. In the new season Marty has now become a journalist and is digging into an archaeology smuggling ring. — and admitted that he took the position, in half, because enjoying a TV detective was on his bucket listing.
Ethan Hawke, left, and Ryan Kiera Armstrong in “The Lowdown.” ©FX Networks/Courtesy Everett Collection
“You gotta love Sterlin, because you think he’s going one way with a story and then all of a sudden, we take a sharp left turn and a different world opens up,” said David. “It certainly keeps you in the moment.”
Hawke’s longtime buddy Martha Plimpton also makes an look as a menacing small-town sheriff with outsized personal fashion, including “a lot of gold jewelry and a duck’s ass hairdo.”
“Ethan’s one of my oldest, dearest friends,” she advised The Post. “If he says, ‘Do you want to do something with me?’ it’s an automatic yes.” In this case, it was more like a sí, as Plimpton commuted all the method from Madrid, where she was taking pictures “Murderbot,” to make the show.
There is also the addition of Betty Gilpin as Ginger, a lawyer imperiled by her connection to a Native man who has mysteriously vanished from an Oklahoma prison. Her character brings out the best and worst in Hawke’s Lee, who smells both a grave injustice and a good story — and also can’t resist a fairly face.
Ethan Hawke, left, and Winona Ryder in the 1994 movie “Reality Bites.” ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
And there are standalone episodes that perform nearly as one-act performs (or as Hawke places it, a John Cassavetes short movie). “The great noirs always have these little digressions into little pools, where you just feel the reality of the universe that’s surrounding the protagonist,” he defined.
“I will push things as far as I can and go wild with a side story,” Harjo added. “I want to be able to break off and go into the seedy underbelly of wherever we’re at.”
The objective, said Hawke, is to take away any hint of a cleaning soap opera from the show.
“It feels like these people are your friends and it’s confusing and messy, the way real life is,” he said. “That’s what drew me down to Tulsa for this show.”
Season 2 of “The Lowdown” debuts on Wednesday, October 14 on FX.
