Ethan Hawke explains John Brown's last line in The Good Lord Bird

Vulture

"I had a pretty powerful experience with Darnell Martin, who directed episode three," Hawke tells Vulture in discussing Sunday's finale. "She is an extremely knowledgeable woman about history in our country. Darnell really knew a lot about John Brown, and she really knew a lot about the abolitionist movement. We had a lot of deep conversations, with her, with McBride, with Daveed (Diggs, who played Frederick Douglass), and we got to know each other really well. She continued to champion the show after she left. She would call me and check in with me. She called me up one day and said, 'I think I know how the show ends.' She started talking about how much John Brown believed in the possibility of America, a government for the people, of the people, by the people. 'What a beautiful country that appeared.' He says that a lot in his life. She was like, 'Imagine if those were his final words.' I called Mark Richard, who’s my partner on the show. We just started talking about it, and we started visualizing this as an opening and closing of the show, of just belief in that whatever we are, it’s worth fighting for." ALSO: How accurate was The Good Lord Bird?