Reviving past roles old hat for Olyphant
Actor sees growth in career trajectory even with series revivals
“I like to think there’s been some growth.”
This was actor Timothy Olyphant in New York in June, musing on the trajectory of his career. He was referring specifically to the task of resurrecting past roles, which he first did a few years ago in the 2019 movie revival of “Deadwood.”
Now comes “Justified: City Primeval,” an eight-episode limited series airing Tuesdays on FX. It features Olyphant returning to what is arguably his signature character, Raylan Givens, the Stetson-sporting deputy
U.S. marshal who anchored the Kentucky crime drama “Justified” for six seasons.
The new show follows Raylan to Detroit for a fish-out-of-water adventure with a murderous baddie (Boyd Holbrook) and a sharp-elbowed but alluring lawyer, played by Aunjanue Ellis. The creators describe it as the existential evolution of a character — invented by crime fiction grandmaster Elmore Leonard — who is starting to realize that he can’t chase killers forever and that he is running out of chances to connect with his teenage daughter.
“It’s a mature, grown-up version of the show that we did,” said Michael Dinner, who created the limited series with Dave Andron. Both are former writers and executive producers on “Justified,” which ended its run on FX in 2015.
The creators and Olyphant, who is also an executive producer on “City Primeval,” hope to bring back Raylan for at least one more series after this one. But first, they are going to find out if people are still interested in the character or “Justified” without the original show’s evocative backwoods setting and colorful criminals, played by the likes of Walton Goggins and Margo Martindale.
“With all due respect to our original cast, who I loved, adored and miss, it was really a fun experience being with all these new cast members but still feeling like we were doing our show,” Olyphant said.
Olyphant’s performance in the darkly comic, morally murky world of “Justified” shifted his previously hit-and-miss career into a higher gear, which in turn has made his future prospects less dependent on the success of the “Justified” revival.
Olyphant was in New York for a screening of a different twisty crime thriller: “Full Circle,” in which he plays a Manhattanite with secrets who has married into the wealthy family of a celebrity chef, played by Dennis Quaid. (Other stars include Claire Danes, Jharrel Jerome and CCH Pounder.) Now streaming on Max, the gripping six-episode serial revolves around a botched kidnapping with international repercussions.
“Full Circle” was directed by Steven Soderbergh, the latest on a list of talented people with whom Olyphant long wanted to work and now has. Others include Quentin Tarantino, who cast Olyphant as the 1960s TV cowboy James Stacy in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (2019), and David O. Russell, who hired him to play a disfigured thug in “Amsterdam” (2022). Kenneth Lonergan made him the center of his acclaimed play “Hold On to Me Darling” (2016).
Soderbergh, who said he had
wanted for years to cast Olyphant, called him “the best example of an experienced professional, in that he can give you anything that you want.”
“That is the best thing I can say about somebody,” he added.
Now 55, Olyphant retains an athlete’s physique, but his hair has gone mostly gray. As he has revived old roles, he has entered a new phase of his life: His three children with Alexis Knief, his wife of over 30 years, are now grown, and one has followed her father not just into show business but also into the world of “Justified.” Vivian Olyphant plays Raylan’s daughter, Willa, in the revival. “Nepotism, you can’t beat it,” he cracked.
The new series updates Leonard’s 1980 novel “City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit.” As Raylan joins the Detroit police in a case that encompasses a string of murders, a psychopathic aspiring singer, Albanian gangsters, corrupt cops and a crooked judge, he is frequently the odd man out in his own show.
“I think they wanted that collision, which is why they sent him to one of the Blackest cities in the country,” said Ellis, who plays a defense attorney at the heart of the story. Other stars include Victor Williams, Vondie CurtisHall and Marin Ireland.
During the original run of “Justified,” Olyphant was known as an occasionally demanding Leonard purist, insisting that the show stay true to the author’s dry wit and sneaky emotional complexity.
That hasn’t changed —
Ellis said Olyphant carried around a tattered copy of “City Primeval” on set “like it was the Bible” — though Olyphant suggested that the terms of engagement had evolved.
“I had a blast working with the writers,” he said. “They picked up where we left off, except for this time, there wasn’t anyone throwing things. They were all used to my (expletive).”
Dinner, who also directed multiple episodes, said that “Olyphant was a great collaborator.”
Olyphant called working with his daughter, who studies acting at William Esper Studio in New York, “one of the greatest experiences of my adult life.”
“So special and challenging, walking that line between trying to get a scene and trying to be a parent,” he said.
“He definitely did give a lot of notes,” Vivian Olyphant, 20, said. “But in between takes, we would have a lot of fun.”
So does Raylan age well? Is there growth? Viewers will have to draw their own conclusions.
“The road in front of him is a lot shorter than the road behind,” Dinner said. “We get him into a place by the end of the story where he makes some decisions about his life.”
Timothy Olyphant’s road is getting shorter, too, but the trade-off is that “the game has gotten simpler,” he said. “I realize it’s all kind of a joke, just getting away with it.” His co-stars say that whatever his penchant for downplaying the job, his enthusiasm for it is apparent.
“He’s obviously very experienced now,” Danes said. “But there’s still that sense of giddiness and searching, which is wonderful.”
Olyphant in turn takes inspiration from those with even more experience, from their example that growth can be its own reward. Co-stars like Quaid, he said, “seem to be having even more fun than I’m having.”
“So if they’ll have me and keep inviting me to the dance,” he said, “I think I’ll keep showing up.”