'Moon Knight' Cast Interviews | Ethan Hawke, May Calamawy, Mohamed Diab And More!
The stars of Disney+'s, “Moon Knight,” including Ethan Hawke (Arthur Harrow) and May Calamawy (Layla), join Director Mohamed Diab, co-Directors Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, and Executive Producer Grant Curtis to discuss their new Disney+ series in this interview with CinemaBlend Sr. Content Producer Law Sharma. Tune in to their deep dive into Hawke’s villainous portrayal, the representation of Egyptian characters and themes throughout the series, Oscar Isaac’s breathtaking performance, and more.
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00:00I have to say right off the bat, I want in on the cult.
00:03Let me join it.
00:04You can join my cult.
00:05We're going to heal the world, brother.
00:07Let's do it.
00:07Don't mind the shirt.
00:08I'm in.
00:13It's time.
00:18You mentioned in the press conference
00:20that when you're playing a villain,
00:22you don't want to consider yourself a villain.
00:24Can you explain why that's important to playing someone
00:27like Harrow?
00:28Whenever I see someone mustache twirling or monologuing
00:33about how they want to destroy the world and everything,
00:36I just get a little bored because I don't believe it,
00:39that most of the people that inflict damage on others,
00:43the Stalins and Pol Pots of the universe,
00:47think they're good people.
00:48They think the ends justify their means
00:51because they somehow believe a divine thing is
00:55happening with them.
00:55And they're megalomaniacs.
00:58And so I wanted him to make a lot of sense to himself.
01:01I think he thinks he's healing the world.
01:03He has to do some unfortunate things,
01:05but the world will be grateful.
01:06You are Marvel Studios' first Middle Eastern character
01:10on screen.
01:12I wonder what was important to you in portraying that,
01:15and what kind of input did you have
01:17when it came to developing the background for this character?
01:20We all sat together.
01:23We spent like six hours on every episode
01:25and had this kind of rehearsal process.
01:28And everyone was involved.
01:30And because she's not someone who's been in the comics,
01:35it took a while.
01:36It wasn't like, oh yeah, this is who she is.
01:38It took filming her for a couple months to be like,
01:40oh, this is who she is.
01:42And that came through really the stunts, a lot of it.
01:45I trained for two months.
01:47A lot of the physical work brought that out.
01:50But what I loved was being able to play,
01:54well, something I love about Arab women,
01:56women all over, but especially Arab women,
01:58is they have a very soft strength to them.
02:03And I wanted to bring that to the screen
02:06as opposed to being like,
02:07she has to look this way, like tough,
02:10or be really vulnerable.
02:11It's like, what if that comes together?
02:16So I pulled from women and myself in the Middle East
02:20as opposed to from the West.
02:23We always see ourselves portrayed
02:24in such an inaccurate way.
02:27The tropes of seeing us
02:29through the Orientalist point of view,
02:32women are submissive, men are bad,
02:34or terrorists, or those kinds of things.
02:36So it was very important for me to show
02:37Mai as a strong female character.
02:42All my movies, and the three movies that I directed,
02:44have very, very strong female characters.
02:47My mom is strong.
02:48My wife is strong.
02:49My daughter is strong.
02:50And this is how they are.
02:52I wish that if I succeeded,
02:56this opens door to more people like me,
02:58or more people around the world
03:01who actually can, their voices could be heard.
03:04Because we have, each of us,
03:07if you felt like this show is unique,
03:09it's because I have a unique point of view,
03:10because I'm unique and different.
03:12So I'm sure everyone through their own life
03:16have a different point of view
03:18that we need to hear, and we need to see.
03:20And it's probably fresh and different.
03:22It's coming.
03:29Well, obviously, as you can imagine,
03:31we always, from day one,
03:32wanted to be respectful and reverential.
03:33And to do so, we brought in consultants,
03:35especially on the mental health side.
03:37Because it's a challenge.
03:38We're obviously dealing with a superhero.
03:40We're dealing with a fictional representation of this,
03:43a supernatural-infused representation.
03:46But we worked with consultants
03:47to try to get the mental health aspect of it right,
03:50and always be, as I said, respectful.
03:52And I think the fans, when the final frame is shown
03:56and lights come up after the final episode,
03:58I think they are going to feel that respect
03:59with which we work with the mental illness.
04:03And then on the Egyptian side,
04:05part of that job got really, really easy
04:07when we hired Mohamed Diab.
04:09And it's one of the reasons
04:10why we hired the great Mohamed Diab.
04:12He's not just a storyteller.
04:14He's an Egyptian storyteller
04:15working at the top of his game.
04:17And everything that he comes to
04:19with the narrative,
04:20he comes through from an organic representation
04:23of Egypt, of Cairo.
04:25And that's why that became much easier.
04:27Because it wasn't like...
04:28And we had great researchers on this show.
04:30We had a great production designer, Stefania Stella,
04:33always making authenticity first and foremost.
04:36But when your director lives there,
04:39grew up there, lives and breathes it,
04:40it made that aspect so much easier to represent properly.
04:44And I think we did so.
04:45The guy's a real artist.
04:46You know, he just is.
04:48And he's a very...
04:51There's love for him
04:53because he puts a lot of love out into the world.
04:55He's a great listener and a great thinker.
05:00And he knew that this was a huge opportunity for him
05:04to play on a really big canvas,
05:06you know, and to really engage with Hollywood
05:09in a way that a lot of young filmmakers dream of,
05:13you know, and that he wanted to do his best.
05:16And he just put forth tremendous effort
05:20and put his intelligence and his wife too, Sarah.
05:23They're very kind, warm-hearted people
05:27who took the opportunity really seriously.
05:29And that inspires you to go to work
05:33when you know somebody really cares about what they're doing
05:36and it really is important to them.
05:37A lot of it was we were kind of digging into
05:40our own experience and our own instincts
05:47on exactly what's exciting and what's thrilling
05:49and what's scary and what's personal.
05:51Really, again, what's personal was where we kept on digging.
05:55And Muhammad was exactly the same way
05:57where there wasn't a whole lot of conversation
06:00around like make this moment like this movie.
06:02And the reason is Moon Knight is a character
06:05that has no canonic affiliation
06:12with the Avengers necessarily.
06:14He doesn't have to.
06:16In some ways, he's an outcast from, you know,
06:18the main, the biggest characters in Marvel.
06:22And so we were kind of allowed to do exactly
06:24whatever we want, but also we needed to do
06:28something that was very, very left of center.
06:30And that was really exciting to us when we signed on.
06:36Yeah.
06:37Oh my God, you're alive.
06:38What's wrong with you, Mark?
06:41Why did you call me Mark?
06:43But I do wonder which version of Moon Knight,
06:45whether it's Mark or Steven or Moon Knight himself,
06:49was the best scene partner for you?
06:52Which one was the most enjoyable to act alongside?
06:56I loved Steven because he's such an open person.
07:01Mark is guarded, which in turn like made
07:05me feel a bit guarded, right?
07:07Because you're like, what's gonna come out of this right now?
07:10And so Steven just felt like light and free
07:12and he's such a nuanced, interesting character.
07:16The first couple of days or the first maybe couple of weeks,
07:19Oscar said, I only want to be Steven or Mark.
07:24I think he needed more time to be absolutely confident
07:28he can do that.
07:29I know he can.
07:30He's a genius.
07:32So one day we started doing those reflection scenes
07:36and I just like told him, let's try to do it.
07:38And it doesn't have to be two days.
07:40Let's try to do this.
07:41And all of a sudden the camera's just panning back and forth
07:45and he turns from Mark and Steven in seconds
07:47and he inhibits them.
07:49And you have to know that it's not easy.
07:52Oscar is Mark in that moment.
07:55You'll know it without him even speaking.
07:58His face changes, his posture changes.
08:00Everything.
08:01We were thinking we were gonna have to like
08:04make changes to wardrobe, like relatively.
08:06Like it would have to be like really good space.
08:08Like, no, no, no.
08:08Oscar can just do it with literally a look,
08:12a change in the muscles in his face.
08:14I want to tell you something.
08:16When he's Steven, he's approachable.
08:18When he's Mark, he's scary.
08:20You're just like, you know what?
08:21You're on your own, direct yourself.
08:22It's funny.
08:23It's fine.
08:23Do whatever you want.
08:24But that's how good he is.
08:27When he was interested in this, we said,
08:28oh my gosh, this is an amazing opportunity to tell Moon Knight
08:31because Moon Knight is such a complex character study,
08:34first and foremost, that we needed somebody like Oscar,
08:38somebody who's at the top of their craft,
08:39which Oscar obviously is, to portray Mark Spector,
08:42Steven Grant, Moon Knight, Mr. Knight.
08:44And he came aboard and it was a breath of fresh air.
08:47He's amazing.
08:48Mae Calamaui is amazing.
08:50Ethan Hawke is absolutely jaw-dropping as Arthur Harrow.
08:54Our cast, our crew, our directors,
08:57this was an embarrassment of riches.
08:58This was working with a lot of people at the top of their game.
09:01I remember I would be so, like, tied to the lines, you know?
09:05And I'd be like, no, no, no, I have to say this.
09:06And Oscar would be like, Mae, if you understand what you're saying,
09:10you can go off.
09:12And because I'd watch him and him and Ethan,
09:14and they would be so free.
09:15And I'm like, how do they do that?
09:17Like, this is marvel.
09:19How are they?
09:19I'm like, they really trust themselves.
09:22Then I'm like, I grew up in Bahrain.
09:23And I'm like, I feel like I'm English ESL.
09:26Like, it's my second language.
09:28But I'm also not perfect in Arabic.
09:30So, you know, so I sometimes didn't trust myself.
09:33And I had to give, that was a good,
09:36that was something I've taken with me into other work.
09:38Of like, really understand what's going on.
09:41And then it doesn't matter if you fully stick to the script.
09:45Oh, that's like, you know, of course they want you to.
09:47But Oscar would give me these, like, nuggets of advice around.
09:52And it was really helpful.
09:54You're just as strictly as a fanboy.
09:55Not even someone who works at Marvel.
09:57I'm so excited about some of the stuff that's coming up at Marvel
10:00that does have a slightly darker edge.
10:02You know, I think when you do look at the tones
10:04and the themes that we deal with in Moon Knight,
10:07you know, we talked about the action adventure of it all,
10:10the intense character study, the horror, the comedy,
10:13all that, the mind-bending journey that he goes on.
10:17I think he merges well in any corner of the Marvel cinematic universe.
10:21But honestly, when you do look at the Doctor Strangers of the world,
10:24when you do look at Blade,
10:25when you do look at all those other shows that embrace
10:28what goes bump in the night,
10:30I'm excited about the future that Kevin has in his mind.
10:33And I can't wait to see where this character and many more land.
10:36Amazing. Well, that's actually going to be our time today,
10:38but I really appreciate you taking a moment to talk to CinemaBlend.
10:42Thank you so much.
10:43And I'm glad you're a member of my cult, you know?
10:45That must be very difficult.
10:47The voices in your head.
10:51There's chaos in you.
10:57Embrace it.