Jimmie Tramel
Tulsa World Scene Reporter
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Ethan Hawke stars in Sterlin Harjo’s new filmed-in-Tulsa series “The Lowdown,” which premieres 8 p.m. Tuesday on FX.
What if Hawke didn’t want to be in the series?
Was there a Plan B?
Harjo, with Hawke sitting at his side, said: “Ethan is Plan A, B and C. I would have probably not done it if I couldn’t have done it with Ethan.”
With Hawke as a wing man, Harjo was able to craft a show that he has described as a love letter to Tulsa.
Asked in a recent interview to elaborate, Harjo said he loves creating and he feels like one of his jobs in life is to create sort of a mythology about places he cares about.
“As a storyteller, that’s just what I’m passionate about doing,” he said.
“And I feel like ‘Reservation Dogs’ was something where I needed to create and also expose people to the mythology I grew up with in rural Oklahoma. I wanted to talk about the magical characters and the love and the heartbreak and everything that was, growing up in Holdenville, Oklahoma. But I hadn’t done it for Tulsa, and I’ve been there a lot of years, and I’ve been collecting stories, and I’ve been collecting ideas, and I’m being inspired all over the place.”
“The Lowdown” wasn’t just shot in Tulsa. The story takes place in Tulsa. Hawke’s character, Lee Raybon, lives and works in a retail store for rare books in the Pearl District. He is committed to exposing the city’s hidden secrets, even when it lands him in jeopardy.
When detailing why the series is a love letter to Tulsa, Harjo continued with this: “I think that there is a before and after of the (1921) Race Massacre being something that is spoken about commonly. And before, our city had no identity because you can’t move forward without addressing big truths in your past. I don’t think you can heal.
“And I think that because the conversation has come out in the public more about the Race Massacre and the tragedies that happened, I think that our city has been able to move forward in a way. There’s still bumps and there’s still everything, but we’re able to heal more. We’re able to kind of get more of an identity.
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“That’s sort of the period in which I have found myself in Tulsa living through, and I saw the changes that the truth can make. I have seen how it can change a community. And I wanted to talk about some of these things in a story that took place in Tulsa because, to me, it does have an identity, whether it’s music or whether it’s art and history and all of these things that I wanted to sort of talk about and touch upon in a story. And there’s nothing better — no better way to do that — than a noir set in your city, so that’s really kind of where it came from.”
Hawke, after hearing Harjo’s response, said he found the words to be incredibly moving — and they make him proud to be part of “The Lowdown.”
Hawke talked about watching the country develop and go through painful growth spurts. He indicated humor can be used to tell painful truths. “The Lowdown” is a crime drama sprinkled with humor.
“I always think whenever you lose your sense of humor, you’ve lost the plot, because life is funny, you know?” Hawke said.
“Part of the reasons why a lot of us love Willie Nelson is he’s got a great sense of humor about the tragedies of life. It’s not that he doesn’t see them. It’s also (that he doesn’t) lose sight of, hey, the sun’s coming up and there’s so many beautiful people and there are kids being born and playing in the park and there are people falling in love, and there’s hard things and dark things.”
And it’s all fair game for exploration.
Hawke compared the creation of the eight-episode first season of “The Lowdown” to making an eight-hour movie for people to watch.
“So it has a big canvas, and we get to tell a big story,” he said. “And there is something about the camera. When you start photographing a place, you’re making a legend out of it. You’re telling the myth of Tulsa, the legend of it. It makes it important. It represents it, as people like to say, and I’m proud to be a part of that.”
Many Tulsans were recruited to help tell this Tulsa story. The cast includes Tim Blake Nelson, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tracy Letts, Josh Fadem, Johnny Polygon, Ken Pomeroy, Robert Peters and others with Oklahoma ties, including Oklahoma City-born actress Tisha Campbell.
Harjo was asked if it was important for him to tell “The Lowdown” story using Oklahoma actors.
“I didn’t have to do that, but, for me, that’s how I do these things,” he said.
“You come on my set, and my family’s working on the show — people that I’ve kept in my career for a long time. It’s like a big family. And there was something about bringing these actors back home to be in something they can be really proud of that was exciting to me.
“I also think that the spirit of a project is alive. I truly do. Some people just make something, and you can feel that they just made something. Or you can (make) something like ‘The Lowdown,’ and you feel that chemistry. You feel the spirit behind it. And I think bringing all of those people back home to help tell a story, it says so much. It’s that they believe in me, that they believe in their home, and it comes alive. Even if you don’t see it or don’t hear it, you feel it. It comes alive in the project.”
jimmie.tramel@
tulsaworld.com
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Jimmie Tramel
Tulsa World Scene Reporter
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