Return To Elmoreland: Timothy Olyphant On Final Season of 'Justified,' The TV Program Based On Elmore Leonard's Deputy U.S. Marshal Character

Allen Barra interviewed actor Timothy Olyphant at the dailybeast.com on the final season of Justified and the passing of the great crime writer Elmore Leonard.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, played  by Timothy Olyphant, has a quiet amiability which belies the intensity of a man who yearns to clean up Harlan County, USA, the hell hole of unemployment, meth labs, and racism where he grew up.  Olyphant has garnered an Emmy nomination and won the praise of the author who created Raylan, Elmore Leonard.

Raylan is a lawman for our time who works not for the ideology-tinged FBI but the most dangerous arm of American law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Marshals Service. His tan Stetson connects him symbolically with a century of movie and television good guys, but, as the color indicates, Raylan can never quite be the unvarnished hero. His ties to Harlan through blood, marriage, and history constantly draw him into dangerous compromises which blur the lines between lawman and outlaw.

Tonight marks the premiere of the sixth and final season of Justified, and fans will be glued to their seats wondering which, if any, of the show’s characters will survive the Marshals office’s final assault on the drug-ravaged, welfare-gutted hills of Harlan County.

Timothy Olyphant spoke to us about these and other topics from his home in California.

Sorry to start out on a sad note, but Elmore Leonard died almost a year and a half ago. I know everybody loved to see him on set, and he enjoyed being there. What is life like without Elmore?

We were all affected by his passing because he always had some interesting observation to make and was always there if you had a question for him. But I don’t think our attitudes about the show changed any when he was no longer with us. We’re all very much aware that it was his world, and we’re just lucky to be living in it. 

You can read the rest of the interview via the below link:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/20/timothy-olyphant-i-know-what-happens-to-raylan-at-the-end-of-justified.html

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Elmore Leonard via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/05/return-to-elmoreland-elmore-leonards.html

You can also read my Counterterorism magazine interview with retired U.S. Marshal Mike Earp on hunting the worst-of-the-worst criminals via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/12/hunting-worst-of-worst-criminals-my-q.html  

Elmore Leonard And T.Jefferson Parker: Two Crime Writers At The Top of Their Game

Mike Downey at the Los Angeles Times reviews Elmore Leonard's Raylan and T. Jefferson Parker's The Jaguar.

The new year is a happier one already for aficionados of America's top crime novelists. That is because, along with T. Jefferson Parker and a snarling, teeth-baring rip-snorter called "The Jaguar," a couple of our most creative writers are back and in good form. Their flawed but basically heroic lawmen — Charlie Hood being the Parker brand — are men of action, written with wit. A law gets bent here and there, but who cares?

Kidney-nappers are at the heart of "Raylan," a pair of Kentucky varmints who turn up unexpectedly at your door, disguised behind Barack and Michelle Obama masks, to drug you, drub you, relieve you of a vital organ — two, in some cases — and then rub-a-dub-dub you in a tub. Good ol' Stetson-topped Raylan, the coal miner's son who became a fed, ends up on the case.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-mike-downey-20120122,0,4000042.story