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Dillon, who also stars on the Paramount+ series, speaks to The Hollywood Reporter about creating ‘Kingstown’ with Taylor Sheridan and shares his hopes for the future of the series following star Renner’s accident.
By Brian Davids
Writer
Mayor of Kingstown co-creator Hugh Dillon first pitched the Paramount+ series to his fellow co-creator Taylor Sheridan when the latter was his acting coach in 2008. Dillon starred on CBS’ Flashpoint for five seasons, and Sheridan coached him throughout all 75 episodes. The duo became fast friends in the process, prompting Dillon to bring up the idea for Kingstown, based on his own experiences in Canada’s “penitentiary city” of Kingston.
Sheridan then put pen to paper for the first time, as Mayor of Kingstown was developed long before Sheridan received critical acclaim as the screenwriter of Sicario (2015) and Hell or High Water (2016). Riding high on the success of those two films, Sheridan proceeded to make his directorial debut by way of the Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen-led Wind River (2017).
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Oddly enough, Dillon and Sheridan had always envisioned Renner in the starring role of Mike McLusky on Kingstown, so Sheridan put out a feeler to Renner on the set of Wind River.
“On Wind River … it all became a reality. Renner was in it, and I played the bad guy. So it was always bubbling underneath, ‘Well, what about Mayor?’ And that’s where it first came up,” Dillon tells The Hollywood Reporter.
The following year, Sheridan ventured into television, creating Yellowstone for Paramount Network, and thanks largely in part to pandemic binges, the series became cable television’s biggest hit in years. In turn, Paramount handed Sheridan the keys to their network, and he’s now created at least 10 additional series, the first of which was Mayor of Kingstown.
On New Year’s Day, just two weeks before the Kingstown’s season two premiere, Renner was injured in a traumatic snowcat accident while clearing a driveway near his Nevada home. After an extremely uneasy couple of days, Renner emerged from two surgeries to offer an encouraging update from his hospital bed. This past weekend, he even tweeted about Kingstown a number of times, which doesn’t surprise Dillon in the slightest. (Renner most recently said he’s looking forward to watching the show with his family at home.)
“We’re like a hockey team. He’s our captain who’s been injured, and that’s really all of it. He’s a fucking fighter. Excuse my language, but that’s the glory of that dude. He’s like Bobby Clarke on the Philadelphia Flyers in the ‘70s,” says Dillon, who also acts alongside Renner in the series.
In a recent conversation with THR, Dillon also offers a preview of what’s to come on Mayor of Kingstown season two, as well as the long-term outlook of the series.
Well, it’s been quite a couple weeks. What were the circumstances in which you found out about Jeremy Renner’s accident?
I heard from one of the producers, and then I saw the news. It was New Year’s Day, and then we just got all hands on deck. We all wanted to just support him and do press for him. He’s family.
Have the two of you been in touch?
Yeah.
After a whirlwind few days, it must feel good to see Jeremy tweeting about the show from his hospital bed.
Yes, the show is what we wanted to focus on; it’s what we talk about. I’ve spent 15 years doing it, and in the last couple [of years], I’ve been talking about it intimately with Renner. We’re like a hockey team. He’s our captain who’s been injured, and that’s really all of it. He’s a fucking fighter. Excuse my language, but that’s the glory of that dude. He’s like Bobby Clarke on the Philadelphia Flyers in the ‘70s. That [comparison] is just terrible. (Laughs.)
His accident happened as you were gearing up for the season two premiere. The press junket was canceled. Was a delay briefly considered at all?
No, because everything was rolling. That’s the thing about Jeremy. He just doesn’t want anything to get in the way, you know? He’s a stand-up fucking dude. He just wants it to rock.
I noticed that the key art has been altered slightly as Mike McLusky (Renner) looked more beat up in the earlier version. Can you comment on making this very understandable change?
Well, if you look at the shit Renner posts, it’s just brutal.
Yeah, I presume the change was made to not trigger anyone who’s already worried about Jeremy.
And I think that’s why I haven’t even thought about the marketing, to tell you the truth. But I think you are right. It’s good of the network, and everybody is sensitive to Jeremy.
So you pitched this show to Taylor Sheridan back when he was your acting coach?
Fifteen years ago, yeah.
And much of it is based on your life in Kingston, Ontario, Canada?
Yeah, I grew up in a prison town that had nine penitentiaries. When I met Taylor, I had six months clean and sober from being a heroin addict. I’d lived all over the place. In the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, my hockey coaches had guns on the benches. They’d put them in the dressing room before we’d go on the ice. The Kingston Pen was a dumping ground for bad guards in the ‘70s.
So when Taylor dove into it, he’d ask questions. He’s a very curious person, and he’s always interested in the truth and the facts. So he’d ask questions and he’d look shit up and go, “Fuck, this is crazy.” So it exists, and that’s where I’m from.
Did the two of you gauge Jeremy’s interest on the Wind River set?
Yeah, Taylor did. [Mayor of Kingstown] was the first thing Taylor wrote, so it was always in his pocket. And we were always like, “Renner is the guy and Dianne Wiest …” So they were always our first choices, and that’s the beauty of working with Taylor. We’ve been tight for so long, and he always goes with that first instinct. He’s great at following through with that.
On Wind River, it was fun to see my friend and mentor, after years of talking about things, directing in Utah, with the majesty of those mountains. He was doing it. It all became a reality. Renner was in it, and I played the bad guy. So it was always bubbling underneath, “Well, what about Mayor?” And that’s where it first came up. I didn’t talk to Jeremy about it then; I was just happy to be there. But Taylor was always confident.
As showrunner, when you’re not acting on Kingstown, are you running around set like Mike McLusky, answering questions and solving problems?
(Laughs.) Yeah, the work doesn’t end on that show. That’s what Taylor prepped me for when I was doing Yellowstone, from department heads to special effects. You come up with these concepts and these big pieces, and then it’s all about execution. You’ve got to figure out how to do it. So it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s fascinating, and it’s profoundly satisfying.
With Taylor spinning 65 other plates at the same time, is he still able to make himself available if you need anything?
One-hundred percent. He was like that as a coach. If you go back really far with him, that’s what he’s like. He’s fucking loyal, and the proof is in the pudding. And even when he was coaching, he was in demand. He’s made a lot of people’s careers, and you can see his DNA in things that you wouldn’t necessarily attribute to him.
Case in point, I shot 75 [episodes] of a show called Flashpoint that was on CBS for years. He coached me on all of them, and he’s done that with a lot of actors. So when we were in L.A., there’d be a lineup. He would start in the morning and have actors coming in all day for half-hour sessions. There’d be a chair across from him and his couch.
This is how I knew he could write and that he could nail this shit. He’d get scripts and he’d coach actors on finding the nuance, the world and the character. And he’d be able to break all that shit down. I’d be going for an audition, and when I would call him in the middle of this shit, he always had the time. His mind works like that. It’s detail on a large scale, and he’s built for it. So he’s just scaled up.
There are definitely some funny moments on this show, such as Kyle McLusky’s (Taylor Handley) “siren day at boating school” line, but Kingstown is certainly the heaviest of the Sheridan-verse shows. Is that just a byproduct of this world and subject matter?
I think so, yes.
Your Kingstown and Yellowstone characters prove that these shows exist in different universes, but did you and Taylor ever discuss placing Kingstown in the same universe as Yellowstone, even if they never interacted?
No, never. They were always completely different things, and conceptually, this was conceived first. He reminds me of a musician. I’m a musician. That’s why I always look at him like one in our conversations. He wrote [Mayor] and then, boom, he went right into Sicario and Wind River and Yellowstone. And then he came back to this when it was moving forward. So they’re very specific things, but his mind works like that. Once he’s honed in on something, specificity is what he looks at. He wants it to be authentic, and that’s what’s so riveting about his writing.
Kingstown’s season two premiere explores the aftermath of season one’s prison riot and how the power dynamics have been upended both inside and outside the prison. Will much of season two be about power grabs and the new pecking order that emerges?
Yes, that is part of it.
I thought season one’s prison riot was riveting and ambitious television. Will season two have its own big swing in terms of scale?
More so, really. Season two is uncompromising. It has a crazy velocity to it, and I think Taylor has opened up the world with an intimacy that explodes. It’s still one large 10-episode movie, and I just find it hypnotic. So there is a deeper scale, if I can put it that way.
So if all goes well and Jeremy gets back on his feet in no time, what’s the long-term vision for this show? Is it a five-season show, ideally? Longer? Shorter?
Well, having discussed it for a decade, we’ve plotted it all out, so it could go anywhere and go for any length. The great thing about discussing it for so long is that we have limitless ideas.
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Mayor of Kingstown is now airing on Paramount+. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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