Plus, the actor and executive producer shares his thoughts on his character Lee’s journey and his hopes for a second season.

Ethan Hawke breaks down *The Lowdown *finale scene he couldn’t film with a straight face: ‘I kept laughing’

Plus, the actor and executive producer shares his thoughts on his character Lee's journey and his hopes for a second season.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and *NME*.

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November 4, 2025 10:17 p.m. ET

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Ethan Hawke as Lee Raybon in 'The Lowdown'. Credit:

Ethan Hawke couldn't stop breaking while filming one particularly side-splitting scene in *The Lowdown* finale. **

“I mean, I gotta tell you, that's the most angry I've been at myself as an actor in probably 20 years,” the actor tells **. “I could not keep a straight face. I kept laughing. I could not stop laughing.” **

The scene in question, you ask? Why, it’s none other than the moment Hawke's inventive Tulsa truthstorian Lee Raybon decides to break into a local feed store and get his pal Marty (Keith David) high off a bunch of bovine vagina muscle relaxants after the latter is injured during their great escape from a gun-toting white supremacist church.

“Something about Keith and that medicine and him getting high off that medicine, I could not stop,” Hawke, who also serves as an executive producer on the series, continues. “I went home and was cursing at myself because I could not stop laughing.”

Keith David's Marty reacts to Lee giving him bovine vagina muscle relaxers on 'The Lowdown'.

A lot of the scene was improvised, Hawke notes, with series creator, writer, and director Sterlin Harjo giving the duo the space to play and get as silly as they wanted. And they both mine the moment for plenty of laughs, with a subsequent scene showing Lee trying to keep the mood in his van light as a heavily-stoned Marty complains about his overly high dosage, threatens murder, and moos dopily in the passenger seat. **

It was that bit that really got to Hawke. “That’s when I just couldn't keep a straight face,” he says.

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And yet, somehow, fleeing from an assault rifle-wielding congregation and getting incredibly high off bovine muscle relaxers is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many dramatic events that unfold in the hit FX series’ season finale. The episode sees Lee forced to reckon with how his hunt for the truth into Dale Washberg's murder (Tim Blake Nelson) has led to real-life consequences — including the death of Arthur (Graham Greene) — and the man, father, and journalist that he wants to be moving forward.

“He made a bunch of mistakes,” Hawke acknowledges. “It was an accident, but he got somebody killed. The stakes are huge for him, and I think there's a little bit of humility he learns by the end.”**

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It also gives Lee his chance to confront his season-long arch nemesis Donald Washberg (Kyle MacLachlan) about his brother's murder... only to find that Donald wasn't actually involved in his sister-in-law-and-sometimes-lover Betty Jo Washberg's (Jeanne Tripplehorn) botched plan, after all. The conversation teaches Lee a powerful lesson on how the truth can be “impacted by point of view,” Hawke says. **

“Any one of the characters you could pick out from the show… to use [Donald] specifically, in Lee's narrative, he is the bad guy,” he explains. “But from Donald’s point of view, he's trying to make the best of a hard situation and he's doing what he thinks is the right thing. They're just intersecting in a violent way. In shedding light on all these things, actually, the truth *does* come out and you see how these points of view are intersecting with one another.”

However, Lee does keep some secrets to himself during their chat, choosing to lie to Donald about never meeting his brother despite encountering him at his bookstore.

“Lee's obsessed with the truth, and yet he doesn't always tell the truth,” Hawke points out. “It's part of his problem. And part of what makes him such an interesting character to play, in my interpretation, is that I don't think Lee remembered that he'd met him until that moment. In that we all tell ourselves half truths, I think Lee means everything he says, it's just always through trying to manipulate somebody else that the truth gets shaded.”

At Lee’s suggestion, Donald ultimately decides to fulfill his late brother's wishes and give Washberg family land to Arthur’s grandson Chutto (Mato Wayuhi), who returns it to the Osage Nation. The community ceremony, Hawke notes, is a bittersweet experience for Lee. **

Lee mans his bookstore in 'The Lowdown'.

“It's one of those the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away [moments],” he says. “I think he has immense pride for actually doing something good in his life and knowing that, in doing it, he really screwed up. I mean, he got a man killed. Nothing is simple. What's that [saying] — wisdom is holding two opposing truths in your hand at the same time? It's the heartbreak that comes along with true wisdom.” **

It also impresses upon Lee the importance of compromise, as he goes on to transform his initial hit piece on Donald into a moving cover story about Dale for the next issue of the Heartland Press.

“He really wants to take Donald down, but he realizes that he'd do more good by not writing that and writing a different piece,” Hawke says. “I love that, at the end, the article that he writes is titled ‘The Sensitive Kind’ — which is really as much about himself as it is about [Dale] — but about how sometimes we get mad at ourselves for our sensitivity, and we see our vulnerabilities as weaknesses, and we don't understand that through those vulnerable spots comes enlightenment, comes an opportunity for us to grow and be better.”

Alongside his career, Lee is also beginning to put those pieces together in his personal life as he attends his ex-wife Sam’s (Kaniehtiio Horn) wedding and recommends to his daughter Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) that she live with her mom full-time.

“I think the heart of the show is actually learning how to be a good man and surviving his many mistakes and showing up for his daughter at the wedding,” Hawke says. “And I think that’s the emotional journey of the whole show. The man Lee is at the beginning of the show would not be able to go to that wedding and show up for his daughter. The man he is at the end is able to, and that's something that I found really moving.” **

Lee attends Samantha and Johnny's wedding.

It’s just one side of Lee that Hawke is interested in exploring should he, Harjo, and the show’s cast and crew get the chance to head back to Tulsa for a second season.**

“The whole world-building of the show is something that really appeals to me,” he says. “Tulsa's history is right there on the surface, and it's so multicultural and it's so exciting to see all these different groups of people. And what is journalism today? What is the truth today? How do you tell multiple points of view, multiple truths, and hold them as one? It's so difficult, and that's what Lee's trying to do. I would love the chance to see the continued adventures of Lee Raybon.”

Still, he’s happy to report that the series also serves as a solid standalone season of television too, if needed.**

“What's beautiful about *The Lowdown *for me is that, if we don't get to make another one, it does function as a limited series,” he explains. “I get really frustrated with a lot of shows where you watch the end of the season and it’s just a cliffhanger. It doesn't leave you with the completed story at all, and you have to wait a year and a half before you get to see the next chapter. I find it so frustrating, and I feel like Sterlin did a great job of both tying up this story so it feels like a novel, and also kicking it out so that we could see more of Lee.” **

*The Lowdown* finale aired Nov. 4 and will be available to stream next day on Hulu.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW TV”