The Justified Cast on Raylan Givens, Son of a Bitch
The stars of the show pay homage to its prickly protagonist, and tell us how he got away with it
14 April 2015 BY KENNY HERZOG
As imagined by the late Elmore Leonard and brought to televised life by Justified executive producer Graham Yost and star Timothy Olyphant, Raylan Givens is many things: reforming redneck, peerless U.S. Marshal, lover of ladies and Stetson hats, and, more than anything, a bit of an asshole. Or maybe a lot of an asshole, depending on which of his colleagues and adversaries you talk to. So we decided to speak with several of the actors who play Raylan’s onscreen pals and enemies over past five years and asked them to recall their fondest memories of Raylan being, well, Raylan—and to uncover just why Marshal Givens got away with being such a dick.
WALTON GOGGINS (BOYD CROWDER)
Biggest Raylan-Being-a-Dick Moment: “How about tying me to a tree and leaving me there in the hills in season four? That was a dick move. How about after I’m shot in episode 10 and tying me to a bumper? Pretty dickish.”
How Boyd Handled Dickish Raylan: “Whenever Raylan would invariably be the dick that he is, Boyd would level the playing field by being a dick back. They have a certain intellectual sparring that’s one of the greatest gifts to me on this show.”
Why Raylan Got Away with Being an SOB: “Because he was number-one on the call sheet. Because you don’t have Justified without the character Raylan Givens, and that character is given permission to act in ways that other people are not.”
NATALIE ZEA (WINONA HAWKINS)
Biggest Raylan-Being-a-Dick Moment: “The first one that comes to mind is this last episode [season six’s ”The Hunt“] we did together where we had this screaming, crying baby, and he did a lot of staring slack-jawed at Winona without an answer. Especially concering the question, ‘Do you want to share custody with this demon child?’”
How Winona Handled Dickish Raylan: “Saying, 'Goddamnit Raylan’ is a good go-to. And it’s my favorite thing to say of hers, because the viewers get outraged with her and send hate mail.”
Why Raylan Got Away with Being an SOB: “Have you seen him? I think the answer’s pretty obvious. Even with men. You can’t resist that.”
JOELLE CARTER (AVA CROWDER)
Biggest Raylan-Being-a-Dick Moment: “When we’re walking through the field when he’s caught me after I ran away from Limehouse [in season six’s ’The Sounding’], the scene from his car to my car, when he’s just grilling me like a little girl because he’s not happy with my actions. He really likes to spank her hand with a ruler.”
How Ava Handled Dickish Raylan: “I think she throws it back at him. I think she’s one of the few people who can. Boyd does it also, but they have their own macho, who’s-gonna-win-the-chess-game thing going. Raylan and Ava, I think, underneath their chemistry and their history, have a sexual tension where they can say things to each other that really gets under their skin.”
Why Raylan Got Away with Being an SOB: “Because that’s the way Elmore Leonard wrote it, and we’ve stayed true to the man who knew the plan.”
JACOB PITTS (TIM GUTTERSON)
Biggest Raylan-Being-a-Dick Moment: “At the end of season two, I’ve been assigned to look over him. We’re monitoring Winona for some kind of threat, and he said he was gonna try and duck out on me, and he did. I think that was Tim Gutterson’s peak of liking Raylan at that point. He told me he was gonna screw me over, but he stuck to his word and accomplished his task, so respect. But then he did it again and, oh, I hated that so much. Your priorities are never gonna be his priorities.”
How Tim Handled Dickish Raylan: “Passive aggression.”
Why Raylan Got Away with Being an SOB: “'Cause they stuck a handsome man under a hat and they made him smile a lot, the dickhead.”
Biggest Raylan-Being-a-Dick Moment: “It would have to be the Russian roulette scene in the trailer [in season three finale ’Slaughterhouse’]. He was basically playing Russian roulette with his gun and my head. His head wasn’t involved. [He’d] put a bullet in there, spin it, go to shoot me, click, go to shoot me, click. I think he finally called it off after like three empty chambers.”
How Wynn Handled Dickish Raylan: “I just tried to ignore him. We live in such different worlds. His brand of square-jawed, slick lawman thing didn’t resonate with me at all. I was like, 'What a tool.’ For Duffy, he was like the dickish quarterback in high school who was gonna probably be selling horrible insurance 12 years down the road.”
Why Raylan Got Away with Being an SOB: “I can’t separate my opinion from Duffy’s opinion. I don’t think ultimately he does get away with it. That’s A. And B, the only reason I think Raylan gets away with being a dick is because of the conventions of the genre that he finds himself in. He had to keep getting away with it so the story goes on.”
Biggest Raylan-Being-a-Dick Moment: “There’s a great line from the first season after he shot somebody in the first episode and then I think he shot somebody in the second episode, and I tell him, 'If you were a first grader, and you bit somebody the first week and then you bit somebody else the second week, pretty soon they’d probably start to call you a biter.’ I think he squinted at me and smirked.”
How Art Handled Dickish Raylan: “A great thing about Art is he’s able to assess people in terms of how they can be useful. Even though Raylan has done some terrible things, Art has found a way to focus him and get him to do the right thing, use his weaknesses as his assets.”
Why Raylan Got Away with Being an SOB: “Because he’s smart and he’s good at what he does. He bends the rules, but he bends them in a way that he doesn’t get necessarily caught, and he ultimately bends them in a way that ultimately justice gets done.”
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