It occurs to me that after getting a bit more info on Timothy Olyphant, a guy whose work I like a lot, I may have to spend some time in Olyphant Jail because I’ve missed out on one or two of his more notable roles, such as his turns as Wes Krulik in Damages and especially Sheriff Seth Bullock in Deadwood. Hell, I may get solitary for missing that whole damn series. However, on the plus side, I may get credit for good behavior for missing Hitman. Perhaps I can suspend my sentence altogether though if I catch Agent 47 in his upcoming FX show should it survive past the pilot phase, because it sounds like it could be quite interesting.
THR.com has word that Olyphant has snagged the lead in an as-yet untitled FX pilot based on an Elmore Leonard short story, Fire in the Hole about U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, who returns to his home town in Kentucky. Creator / exec producer Graham Yost describes the character as thus: “He has a certain jaggedness, but he also loves his job,” Yost
said. “He is like an anachronism: He wears a hat, cowboy boots and
a holster on his hip. It’s a little bit like he was born 100 years
too late.” Production is set to start in May and Yost is high on both Olyphant and the reponse he got from Leonard himself: “One of the great thrills was getting to speak to Elmore a couple
of weeks ago,” Yost said. “He said he liked my adaptation a
lot.”
Depending on how…off the character of Givens is, Olyphant could be the perfect man to play him. Because even when he’s portraying normal, non-homicidal characters, the guy just has that look, like he’s trying to find the most creative way to murder everyone on set: cast, crew, director, craft service, etc., before moving onto the audience. In fact, now that I think about it, I probably shouldn’t have made that little crack about Hitman…