Ethan Hawke Confirms Exciting Filming Milestone For The Lowdown Season 2

Ethan Hawke’s gritty Western thriller The Lowdown gets a major new production update amid filming for season 2.

During an interview with Gold Derby, Hawke, who plays Lee Raybon on the FX series, revealed that he’s about “halfway” through filming The Lowdown season 2. As production continues, the actor admitted that he’s “getting my a** handed to me left, right and center again.”

Teasing season 2, Hawke added that his character, Lee, will fall in love. “If the first season was centered around his relationship with his daughter,” he said, “the second one centers on his relationship with his father.” That storyline will unfold in the upcoming season as Lee learns how to be a son, which will prove difficult, according to Hawke.

“I’m getting my a** handed to me left, right and center again. The big event is that Lee is going to fall in love. If the first season was centered around his relationship with his daughter, the second one centers on his relationship with his father. So he’s learning how to be a son, which is difficult too.”

While he’s appeared on other TV shows over the years, including The Purge, The Good Lord Bird, Moon Knight, and Reservation Dogs, The Lowdown is Hawke’s first time as a series regular of an ongoing series. When filming The Lowdown season 1, it didn’t feel any different than shooting a movie.

However, as Hawke is working on season 2, he’s realizing how different movies and TV shows really are. “What’s different is season 2,” he explained. “Now the challenge comes into it because the best shows get better as they go along—until they get worse, but they grow.“

The actor hopes that the show can build upon what viewers are now familiar with from season 1 to “deepen the storytelling and get richer and more complex.” If he and the rest of the cast and crew can succeed in that, then “you make it really great television.”

“The difference between television and what people call cinema is something I’m feeling now. At first it wasn’t different at all. What’s different is season 2. You build a world and you tell the story. That’s the first season. It was like a long movie, but it felt like we were making an independent movie that had a lot of digressions. Now the challenge comes into it because the best shows get better as they go along — until they get worse. But they grow. And the audience has a familiarity with the world, and it’s a place they feel comfortable. If you can utilize that to deepen the storytelling and get richer and more complex, then you make it really great television. But so the challenge exists for me as right today as we’re halfway through Season 2.”

Hawke is best known for his roles on the big screen in movies like the Before trilogy, Dead Poets Society, Training Day, Lord of War, The Purge, The Magnificent Seven, The Kid, Boyhood, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Blue Moon, and Black Phone 2. His performances in Training Day, Boyhood, and Blue Moon earned him nominations at the Oscars.

In 2025, Hawke debuted his new Western series The Lowdown, with co-stars Keith David, Kaniehtiio Horn, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Macon Blair, Scott Shepherd, Tim Blake Nelson, Tracy Letts, and Michael Hitchcock. Reservation Dogs‘ Sterlin Harjo created the FX show. He and Hawke also serve as executive producers with Garrett Basch and Ryan Hawke.

The show centers around Hawke’s journalist character, Lee, who begins an investigation in Oklahoma after a gubernatorial candidate’s brother mysteriously dies. Along the way, Lee discovers shocking secrets and corruption.

The Lowdown has been a critically acclaimed series that’s earned a nearly perfect score of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Hawke even landed a Film Independent Spirit Awards nomination earlier this year for Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series, a category that Adolescence‘s Stephen Graham won.

FX renewed The Lowdown back in January, with Betty Gilpin, Tommy Lee Jones, and Austin Amelio joining the series as Hawke’s new co-stars for season 2, which does not have a premiere date yet.