Luke Hawx Recalls Speaking With Steve Austin Before Playing Him On Young Rock

Luke Hawx portrayed Steve Austin on NBC’s Young Rock, and he recently recalled speaking with Austin before filming the role. Hawx appeared in six episodes of the show, and he spoke with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp about the experience. You can check out some highlights below:

On the feedback he got from playing the role: “I got a lot of positive feedback. Unfortunately on that show, a lot of the characters got a lot of negative heat online. That’s to be expected when you’re portraying somebody. So my thing was I knew who I was portraying and I wanted to do it justice. It was a family comedy and I was familiar with it, but I didn’t want to treat it like a family comedy. I wanted to do justice to Steve Austin’s character. I remember before we filmed, I talked to Steve. He called me -— Helms had him call me, actually. Shout out, Hurricane Helms.”

On his conversation with Austin: “But no, so Helms told Steve I was playing him. So Steve called me and I was like, ‘Hey, man, I really want to do you justice. Is there anything to stay away from anything? Do you have any tips you can give me?’ His exact words, he goes, ‘Ain’t too hard to fuck me up.’ I think it was Rob Van Dam who actually said, ‘Oh, Luke plays a better Steve Austin than Steve Austin.’”

On wanting to do Austin justice: “But no, I just wanted to do Steve Austin justice, man. You know, he’s the greatest to ever do it. He’s the GOAT and I had that opportunity. It also was an opportunity for me to showcase some range and some acting skills instead of just being the bad guy and coming in and going, ‘I’m gonna kick your ass,’ you know? So it gave me an opportunity to play a character and show range and I just wanted to knock it out and I’m thankful for it. So thank you Seven Bucks Productions. Thank you, Brian Gerwitz.”