Ethan Hawke shares all about the challenging filming of 'The Weight'

Ethan Hawke stars alongside Russell Crowe in The Weight'

By Maryam Nasir
|
January 28, 2026
Ethan Hawke details 'hardest summer' amid 'The Weight' filming

Ethan Hawke is revealing why his summer filming gritty newhistorical drama The Weight was on of his most difficult times.

The Weight is a depression era adventure drama that sees Ethan Hawke play a veteran and dad trying to regain custody of his daughter all the while navigating a risky gold smuggling operation and betrayal from his own ranks.

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"This was one of the hardest summers of my life," Hawke told EW on Tuesday. "Being in the water, being in the woods, I keep saying, 'Oh, it's an action movie without that much action,' but it was exhausting. Just worrying about the ticks alone."

Hawke recently attended the Sundance Film Festival promoting The Weight. There, he spoke about the stunt expectations from actors following Tom Cruise's death defying stunts in theMission: Impossible and Top Gun films.

"Tom Cruise has totally changed what's expected for actors," he told Variety.

"Some part of me is getting angry over the years because everyone somehow feels like they're less if they use a stunt team," he shared candidly.

Luckily for the Black Phone star, The Weight featured no "ridiculous stunts."

"It's human. It's not about things blowing up, so most of the stunts were things we could do. They weren't superhero things," he remarked.

The Weight premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and stars Russell Crowe alongside Ethan Hawke.

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