How ‘Blue Moon’ Made Ethan Hawke Short Using “Old-School Stage Craft”
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Blue Moon
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As of today, Blue Moon is now streaming on Netflix, which means you are obligated to run, not walk, to go watch Ethan Hawke deliver the best performance of 2025. It’s long shot for Hawke to win the Oscar for Best Actor (given that he’s up against Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet), but he absolutely would deserve it.
Written and directed by Richard Linklater—who has been collaborating with Hawke since 1995’s Before Sunrise—Blue Moon is a tragi-comedy based on a true story, starring a near-unrecognizable Hawke as Larry Hart. In the movie, Hart—a lyricist known for his work with composer Richard Rodgers (played by a very restrained Andrew Scott)—is putting on a brave face on the opening night of Oklahoma!—aka the night it went from “Rodgers and Hart” to “Rodgers and Hammerstein,” after Rodgers’ first collab with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein was a smash hit.
The entire film takes place over the course of one night, in a single location: the New York City bar where Rodgers and his colleagues come to celebrate their opening on Broadway. The single set came in handy when it came to the set and camera tricks used to make Hawke look more like the real Larry Hart, who was only five feet tall in real life. Read on to learn more about how Blue Moon made Ethan Hawke look short, and how tall Ethan Hawke is in real life.
Photo: Sabrina Lantos / © Sony Pictures Classics / Courtesy Everett Collection
How tall is Ethan Hawke in real life?
Ethan Hawke is 5-foot and 10-inches in real life, according to a report from Entertainment Weekly, which covered a Q&A that followed a film screening at Toronto Film Festival.
“The challenge is understanding the way the world looks at each one of us differently, and so much of our self-esteem is rooted in how we think other people view us, which is very difficult,” Hawke said at that talk back. “People are height-ist! I mean, they really are. […] Everybody’s looking at Larry like he’s something less than, so it’s driving him mad. It has been his whole life.”
From left: BLUE MOON, from left: Director Richard Linklater, Bobby Cannavale, on set of Blue Moon, 2025 Photo: Sabrina Lantos / © Sony Pictures Classics / Courtesy Everett Collection
How did Blue Moon make Ethan Hawke short?
In order to turn a 5-foot-10 man into a 5-foot-nothing man, Linklater used a variety of costuming, set, and perspective tricks to make Ethan Hawke look short.
Hawke explained the various techniques in an interview with Parade Magazine.
“Rick didn’t want any digital effects, because the movie is rooted in such realism. We just used every old-school, stage craft. There wasn’t one way we did it. There was a million ways—some with perspective, some with costumes. Sometimes we dug trenches in the floor. Sometimes chairs are different heights. Sometimes the paintings are hung differently, to make it look… you know, every angle, every shot, was a different math experiment. It was extremely difficult, to do every day. But it works. It was fun.”
Photo: Sabrina Lantos / © Sony Pictures Classics / Courtesy Everett Collection
In addition to standing in trenches and wearing oversized suits, Hawke made other physical changes to transform into Larry Hart—like shaving his head. Or, as Hawke explained to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, part of his head.
“I grew my hair long, and then I shaved this part,” Hawke explained, gesturing to the top of his head. “And then I left this part long [he gestures to the side of his head], so I could do the comb over.”
As you might imagine, it wasn’t a very flattering haircut.
“Which is fine on set,” Hawke said with a laugh. “But when you’re going to buy coffee in the morning, you know what I mean? I look like a full-blown lunatic. It was devastating to my self-esteem.”
In that same interview with Fallon, Hawke elaborated on some of the methods used to make him look short in the film.
“We blocked the whole movie out, and we could build a trench about a foot shorter for me to walk through,” Hawke explained. “We would raise the paintings up, and the seats. My bench would be lower than your bench. Little tricks.”
“He was the smallest person in every room, and he was the biggest person in every room,” Hawke went on to say. “He was the bravest, and he was the most nervous and insecure. He was gay, and in love with a woman. He was full of contradictions. Everything about him was complicated.”
