Ethan Hawke reacts to being called 'the "Moon Knight" guy,' talks daughter Maya's breakout in 'Stranger Things'

With his villainous turn in Marvel’s Disney+ series Moon Knight, a small but pivotal role in Robert Eggers’s acclaimed viking blood-fest The Northman and his creepiest role of all time as a child killer in the upcoming supernatural horror film The Black Phone, Ethan Hawke is having one of the best years of his career.

That is not, however, what's made Hawke trend recently on social media.

Instead it's been a combination of young Stranger Things fans discovering that one of the Netflix series’ fan favorites Robin (as played by Maya Hawke) is the daughter of the quote-unquote “Moon Knight guy” — and Hawke fans subsequently outraged that the four-time Oscar nominee with 35-plus years worth of movie roles under his belt was being reduced to that description.

Hawke, however, didn’t seem to mind when we caught up with him at a virtual press day for The Black Phone.

“Well, that’s who I am to them, and that’s the fun of acting,” says Hawke, who started his film career at age 14 in 1985’s Explorers and whose other major acting credits include Dead Poets Society (1989), Alive (1993), Reality Bites (1994), Quiz Show (1994), Before Sunrise (1995), Gattaca (1997), Waking Life (2001), Training Day (2001), Before Sunset (2004), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007), Brooklyn’s Finest (2009), Sinister (2012), Before Midnight (2013), The Purge (2013), Boyhood (2014), First Reformed (2017), Juliet, Naked (2018), Cut Throat City (2020) and even more than this.

“For years you’re the prep school kid from Dead Poets Society, then you’re the cop from Training Day. Then you’re the Gen-X’er from Reality Bites. Now I’m the Moon Knight guy.”

Ethan, 51, does clearly take pride in the work of his daughter Maya, 23 (whose mother is Uma Thurman), who broke out as the droll, multilingual Robin in Season 3 of Stranger Things and continues to have a prominent role in its current fourth season.

“It’s kind of fun for Maya and I both to be working in such a mainstream milieu that I haven’t spent a lot of time in,” he says.

It’s also kind of fun to see what a good sense of humor Hawke has about now only being tied to his recent Marvel role.

Just hear him bid farewell at the end of our interview.

“Moon Knight guy signing off,” he laughs.

The Black Phone opens in theaters Friday, June 24.

Watch the trailer: