Timothy Olyphant talks ‘Justified’ season 4, the hill people and Kentucky
“Justified” is back on Monday as season 4 gets underway. The FX series stars Timothy Olyphant as Elmore Leonard’s U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens.
Timothy Olyphant FX Justified photo
The actor gave fans a few updates during his interview with Crave Online Thursday. One of the biggest changes for this season is the “Hitman” star becoming an Executive Producer and working closer with the writers.
” I am very thankful for the opportunity. It made the job just thoroughly enjoyable and thoroughly challenging. It really has been a pleasure to be able to have permission to work with the writers and directors week in and week out in that capacity. How involved am I? In my mind, I’m doing everything but in reality, I’m doing very, very little. It’s so easy.”
Jokes aside, Olyphant admits to spewing out ideas regularly.
“I have the luxury of not having my name on the page and I think that gives me a certain amount of freedom to shoot out ideas of any kind. I think because I’m not a writer it gives me a certain vantage point that sometimes can be helpful when I engage with the writers and collaborate with them in that way. Like I said, that collaboration has been really fulfilling.”
To season four details, Olyphant is asked and explains who these “hill people” are and their role in season four.
“The hill people are characters we introduce a third or so of the way in. Like all these people from Harlan, everyone has some kind of connection to one another. The question is does that help or hurt them? That’s what we’ve got to try to find out in the course of that story.”
There is a great deal of research to make the atmosphere feel like Kentucky, he addresses this effort as well.
“We have folks that we’re friendly with from back in Harlan County that are very gracious, they stay in touch with us. We continue to use them as a source for material and inspiration. We also spend time talking with the marshals and we spend a good deal of time trying to rip off Elmore. Whatever we can to try to put the best story out there.”
Many fans may not have known that and how the cleanup at post-production completes the Kentucky transformation, so what would be different if they filmed in the Blue Grass State.
“Well, we’d be able to do better driving scenes. We [wouldn’t] have to spend all that money in post trying to get rid of the palm tree in the background.”
Check out the entire interview here
The debut episode is January 8 on FX.
