Ayla Ruby
Damian Marcano directs episodes 4, 5, and 6 of the miniseries Lawmen: Bass Reeves and is responsible for bringing some of the most incredible Western action of the show on screen. As an audience, these episodes totally clue us in as to why Reeves (as played by David Oyelowo, who Joey interviewed here) is a legend. It’s triumphant, entertaining, and a ton of fun to see on screen. This should be no surprise considering Marcano’s other work, including two episodes of American Gigolo with Jon Bernthal and a win in 2022 at SXSW for the Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award for his feature, Chee$e.
Over Zoom, we chatted with Marcano about working on the Western, and it’s one of this author’s favorite interviews this season. He shared why he was so keen for the project, and some of it had to do with how Bass Reeves, the actual person, was the original inspiration for the famous Lone Ranger of television history. Marcano opened up about his conversations with Taylor Sheridan and how he wanted to bring a Buffalo Soldier influence to Bass Reves for his episodes. He shared details about filming in Texas and how some of the historical material was emotionally impactful and tough to get through. Read on for the full interview, or listen to the audio above.
Ayla Ruby: Okay. So again, yay, I’m really excited to chat.
Damian Marcano: Me too. Me too.
Ayla Ruby: So I’d love to talk a little bit about how you got onto this project, how you came across the scripts, what was your journey to the show?
Damian Marcano: Let’s see. You’re taking me back through memory lane. Let’s see. I think I was shooting American Gigolo at the time, and my director of photography, that’s what happened, he said, “I got something that I want you to read.” And I was like, “Okay,” Because this is very rare than a director of photography says they want you to read something.
And so, he sent me a script, which was the pilot, and I guess it was something that he might have been considering or just sort of in the talks for. And I read it, and I really liked it. I really truly enjoyed it. I thought it was just… It wasn’t just this historic piece.
I was never a great history student. It was like the class I would always fall asleep in. It was always all these boring, boring stories, man. But when I read this, it didn’t feel like that boring version of history. It kind of felt like, one, who is this person, and why have I never heard about this? And two, wow, it’s really this very nice portrayal.
Tough to digest some of the parts at times because it’s just like the origins of the story where people of color were in this country at the time. There was a lot of… It didn’t look away from the truth. But there was just this human spirit that I believe that Chad, who I would later come to meet, had sort of done a brilliant job of writing this script.
And somewhere in between there, I had a conversation with Taylor Sheridan just about my lack of affection for history or that type of history that makes you fall asleep. And he says, “So what are you thinking?” And I said, “Well, I’m a Rasta man, so I would have to be… It would be a true miss if I didn’t try to make this a Buffalo Soldier dreadlock Rasta version of the Lone Ranger.”
Because I had also, I had done my light research at the time and learned that Bass was kind of like the origin for the thing that I watched growing up in Trinidad with my grandfather, which was just a white guy and his indigenous friend. That’s the version that they gave us. I had no clue that there was so much truth and so much just of a great story of a pretty tough human being that persevered throughout their life, man. So it kind of became a special project at that point.
Ayla Ruby: Now, you mentioned your light research. Once you got into the mindset for the project, how did you go about immersing yourself in that world outside of the scripts, outside of all of that? Was there anything you did or-
Damian Marcano: No, I think that’s going back to what I initially said about the script. You could read that script, and you could take chapters from your own life. It wasn’t sort of written for us to say, “We are not all capable of these things that this person is capable of.” I think it’s just like… But it could be just a nice reference when you think about yourself or you think about you having to go out on the road, which Bass did a lot, right?
Ayla Ruby: Yeah.
Damian Marcano: And then, our profession, sometimes we have to travel a lot for work. I had to spend six months in the middle of nowhere in Texas to make this.
Ayla Ruby: Oh, wow.
Damian Marcano: And you leave… So weirdly enough, and this is just my own story. There’s 75 other versions of this where people I think could relate to. But in my story, I’m a person that goes out on the road to provide for my family. I have to go do whatever I have to do, shoot these shows or whatnot. And then you come back, and there’s this one part of family… Which I believe a lot of us who do travel for work, you leave your family one way and you really hope, and you always expect that it’s exactly like that when you come back.
So one of the things I really loved about the script was the fact that Bass would constantly battle with that. And this was the 1800s so this wasn’t a time in which he and Jenny could just keep up with each other. She couldn’t send him a text. She couldn’t explain what happened with Sally at the fair. He would just come in the front door, and it would just be the instant download.
And I think everyone out there who has someone to love, whether or not you’re traveling for a long period of work, even if you’re just gone for the day, there is that sort of download period when you get home. And nowadays, I guess it’s so much more digital. It’s so much more like we’re always in the know.
So I think being immersed in telling this story, you kind of have to look at what we have now. And you do take a look at what my production designers did, what our wardrobe did, what hair and makeup did. It wasn’t sort of like sometimes you go on sets and you can see your three walls, and you’re like, “Okay, here’s my set.” This was different.
This was like they created an area that this thing took place in, and not the entire show, but meaning just the scene that you were working on. Here was maybe a photo representation from an earlier production meeting or something. And then that photo came to life like when we rebuilt the carnival, when we rebuilt even the squatter’s encampment where people went after emancipation.
That was a tough one because they had done such a good job that myself, Lauren Banks, and Joaquina, who were all in that scene, we all kind of welled up because for the first time you find yourself submerged in another version of your history, and there’s no easy way to digest that. So you just kind of take it in, and you let it happen.
So, like I said, I did light research because I didn’t really want to go in there and say, “This is history, and let’s just tell the history.” Because if all we know is what we know then that’s all we know. And I don’t never want to be like that. So I tried to attack each day with a fresh spirit when we shot this project.
This was working through each scene with all of the actors and literally trying to find the truth because none of these people’s perceptions or beliefs or anything were present day. They weren’t 2023. They were truly really just figuring this out. This was an interesting time in this place, man.
Ayla Ruby: How do you work with actors to find that truth for something that’s a period piece where they are in 2023? How do you blend those mindsets?
Damian Marcano: It is always, I consider myself a lightning hunter. So if the actor that we have cast is good, which they usually are, it’s my job to go find that lightning. I think it’s just like you and I are talking here. A big part of my job is just conversation, figuring out and talking it through.
It’s like a singer, going and warming your voice up and figuring out and doing a bunch of takes so that you finally find that one. I try not to overwork my actors, and that’s why I’m a little bit more of a lightning hunter because I don’t believe in 20 takes for one actor for one thing. But I do believe let’s chat for 20 minutes, man. And let’s get it so good that we get in there, and you get one for you. I get one for me. We get a few other options. We really enjoy playing in that palette.
And when you have someone like David, when you have people like Lauren, we just had such an incredible cast, so everybody had their own lightning. And each day it was just like, “No, no, no, no, if you do that, and if you could bring a little bit of yourself into this because there’s a certain way your eyes do this.”
Damian Marcano: W the talented group of actors that we had, that I had the ability to direct on the season, every day was sort of showing up and playing with the palette that we each had and us all knowing that no matter what, we really are trying to find the truth. And the truth as best as we could tell it, right?
Because no one, none of us were actually there that day and actually doing these things. But their portrayals and just the range of the talent, Rob Morgan, who played Ramsey, is one of my favorite characters of my entire block of episodes. So there is just, everywhere I look, I can remember just another cast member that I thought was exceptional.
Ayla Ruby: Now, you also have a background, like you’re a screenwriter, you’ve done cinematography. Do those experiences influence your director’s eye and how you approach the story and the goals of the episodes you had?
Damian Marcano: Yes, it does. Because, weirdly enough, I always have an edit of the scene in my head. I always attack each scene with saying, “Wow, I really wish I could do this.” And, yes, some of it is discovery, but the discovery is more in the portrayal that the actor gives me, where I’m looking at it like…
I used to paint at one point in my life. I probably should a little bit more. And that was just four corners on a canvas. So what I do now is the same thing, it’s just the same four corners. So I tend to look at each frame, at each shot, each setup, as sort of this new canvas that I have to paint.
And some of that former knowledge… And I can’t even say, “Former knowledge,” because I use it every day. I work hand-in-hand with my cinematographer because it’s easier when you have two. It’s like sometimes there’s something I’m not thinking about. And some days we have four cameras, and sometimes we jokingly say, “You take those two. I’ll take these two.”
But it’s that type of spirit overall. The biggest part of my formula is keeping that spirit that we have to give this back to people. So I don’t really care how important we all believe our jobs are on the day while we’re making it. The people decide in the end. And one of the best things I find is that to let a good spirit and a positive working environment actually bleed through the negative that we’re shooting.
And, yeah, it may sound like, ah, how’s that even possible? When I do a great scene, and we’ve just shot it, you can kind of look around, and not even just at the actors, but you can look around at your crew people, because they’re almost like the first audience, right?
Ayla Ruby: Yeah.
Damian Marcano: They’ve seen this even before it’s been edited. It’s almost like a stage play at that point. And if you see certain emotional reactions or cues in people, you could kind of know that’s exactly how we did it. And that’s sort of how I believe that we pass that image, that you pass that positive spirit.
Ayla Ruby: You mentioned that there was a lot of kind of tough things going on. And your episodes, you’ve got the Mr. Sundown arc that kind of starts. You’ve got a lot of things that are not easy to think about or to hear. Can you talk about your goals for how you approached these episodes, and where there were narrative goals or where Bass was and then where he ends up at the end of six?
Damian Marcano: Sorry, there’s a helicopter.
Ayla Ruby: That’s okay. That’s an everyday sight there.
Damian Marcano: Yeah, I’m telling you, man. What would I say about that? Let’s see. Refresh my mind again because… Just refresh my mind with the question again. Sorry.
Ayla Ruby: So you had all these tough things in your episodes. You had, I think kind of like the start of Mr. Sundown. And by the end of I think six, the pieces are there as to who it is. How did you approach where Bass was at the start of four to where he is at the end of your episodes?
Damian Marcano: Well, my chapter sort of starts 12 years later than when we first meet Bass. So there’s an earlier part of the season where Bass is coming into his own, if you will. There’s obviously his own emancipation from Mr. Reeves. There is him meeting Billy Crow. There’s them trying to form whatever this posse is. There’s him even accepting the job or lack of wanting the job to a degree, right?
Ayla Ruby: Mm-hmm.
Damian Marcano: When we start in episode four, Bass Reeves is fully there. I mean, he’s in a field shooting a hole in a hat. He is so seasoned at this point, he’s beginning to come up with ruses to be able to trick people into arrest. So something’s happened, and there’s been a shift.
And when I first spoke to Taylor Sheridan about this, he said, “Look, I love that Buffalo Soldier idea because your chapter, you can almost pivot. You can pivot. The minute you start episode four with that bang, with that shot on that hat, I think you can just go, just have fun with it.”
And in my mind, at that point, I started thinking of things from, this is me thinking of me as the audience, when I was just starting out as a young person watching cinema on an island. It was things like Star Wars. It was things like Indiana Jones. Those were always these triumphant pieces that have this clear hero, and they were overcoming just this insane magnitude of evil, right?
Ayla Ruby: Yeah.
Damian Marcano: And I figured, well, can we make four, five, and six kind of like this. Yes, it’s not Star Wars, but for me, Star Wars is like a western shot in space. And it’s its own thing, but can we make it entertaining? Can we make it triumphant? Can we still make it the soul and the heart of a man? Which I think we follow through, and we see that he sort of never wavers from that.
But the biggest part for me was that every day we talked about, every day on set, David and I would speak about, it’s refreshing to see a story in the 1800s about a black character who is not getting his ass whooped all the time. Instead, he is doing the whooping.
And I really think that totally, our writers will give you obviously a very beautiful concept of brutality and beauty, which that was the time. It was beautiful landscapes with brutal shootouts, slavery, all sorts of things.
But, for me, it was just triumphant because I had not seen this, not in the televised form, not in something episodic that I could tune into and say, “Oh no, there’s another one,” or, “There’s another one, and he’s still winning. Oh, yeah, I’m here for this man.” So I thought that was sort of the joy that we really hand back to the audience because it’s a really unique story in that sense.
Ayla Ruby: Along with that, there are a lot of very classic western-y action scenes in these episodes where he is kicking butt. There’s a guy flying out the window. There’s this massive shootout, which was really cool. And I’d love to know if you could talk about how that was put together or anything you can share about some of it.
Damian Marcano: That was a joy. We actually wanted to do more, but we ended up rebuilding that town, that very town that you talk about. There’s no VFX. There’s no green screen. We found this little town called Strawn, Texas.
I had never been to Strawn, Texas. If you go to Strawn, Texas, you have to visit Mary’s because Mary’s is the number one chicken fried steak in the state of Texas. I haven’t had it, but this is what I’m told, and you have to be there. I had something else on the menu. But besides Mary’s and a gas station and a bank… I mean, this is a true what you hear about of small town America. This is a really, really small town.
And so, we show up in this small town and decide to rebuild Checotah and all of these old places that Bass Billy essentially have to venture into. Checotah on payday was wild. There’s fights happening. There’s just gunfire in the streets. There’s fireworks being let off. It was mayhem. Three hundred extras, horses, everything that you could think of.
So in order to do this in an efficient way so that we actually make our days, I remember Wynn Thomas, our production designer, he and his team ended up building me sort of like this foam core architecture model like what you would see when people are designing a nice home, but instead it was like the entire town.
Ayla Ruby: Oh, wow.
Damian Marcano: So for at least two months before actually filming that scene, I had this lovely foam core model, which I kept on the ranch with me where I stayed in Texas. And there were different times that my director of photography would come by. My writer for that very episode would come by.
And we would just look at the model and say, “Well, no, we should bring them up this way.” And then the director of photography may say, “No, no, no, we really want to keep the sun on their back. So this is, he’s west, man. You got to go this way.” And we’d say, “Oh, okay.”
But if we do that, we can’t keep the church. And as a result, there’s no church. There was one thing missing from that, which I always regret. Which was part of that shootout, they were supposed to burst into a church that was in the middle of service.
Ayla Ruby: Oh, that’s cool.
Damian Marcano: And it’s one of those scenes that last for three seconds. So it’s like they burst into a church, they burst out the other side. But, yeah, logistically, we couldn’t complete it, but we did so many other things, man.
But that’s how you get through those large scenes. There is a part of it where you have to just sort of become a child again and get out the models and get out the little horsies and little army man and say, “No, no, no, but he’s going to be this way, and this is where he’s going to get winged in the army,” or, “This is where this is going to happen.” So you do it in a very simple way.
And then, at some point, we got our storyboard artists to come on board and just sort of mark down a few key areas for us so that when we got out there… Because it was Mayhem, when you get out there, you’re like, “This was on the page and now it’s all here in real life. And we really do have to do this, and we have to do this all in a very safe way.”
We’re in a new era now with gun safety and cinema, so you’re just talking very long nights to shoot very short sequences, but to keep them very rich. There’s a horse running into a man. And the guy falling off the horse, he actually fell off that horse a couple of times. Yeah, I’ll never forget. He got up the second time, and we thought he got up a little slow, but then he gave us the all good Fall Guy thumbs up sign.
Ayla Ruby: Yeah.
Damian Marcano: Yep.
Ayla Ruby: Okay. Well, that’s awesome. That’s a wonderful story. I know we’re at time, but is there anything you want people to know about Bass Reeves the show, or about anything you’re working on?
Damian Marcano: Man, I just I hope the audience really enjoys it. Jokingly enough, because I’ve been busy, I have not seen Bass Reeves as of yet.
Ayla Ruby: Oh, no.
Damian Marcano: And I plan on actually watching it on June 11th when my sons get out of school. So my summer time viewing sphere is actually going to be Bass Reeves. So I really hope people really appreciate and like this endeavor that we went upon. Because we did it in a very truthful, honest way, and it was hard. It is really hard trying to shoot a western today. So I really hope that… What we do is for the audience, and I really hope everyone enjoys it.
Ayla Ruby: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It’s been wonderful talking.
Damian Marcano: Yeah. Thank you so much for the time.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Comments
Loading…