FX’s Alien: Earth started this week, and I’ve only watched about ten minutes of it as of this writing. I get the vibe, it’s just incredibly complicated from the word go. I assume that the series’ writers believe that the Alien film franchise has done enough world-building so they can pretty much jump right in, but I felt like I needed to take notes on which characters were robots. As it turns out, Timothy Olyphant is playing a robot in the series. A blonde robot who is sassy. He’s also got a recurring role in AppleTV’s Stick, and he’s part of the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel (dumb). He’s 57 years old, he’s been married to the same woman for 34 years, and he has three adult children. Bonkers! Anyway, I really enjoyed his interview with THR.

Which roles he’d like to play: “At the risk of sounding a little bit unmotivated, more of the same. I like the jobs I’ve had, and I like the people I’ve been allowed to work with. I’d be happy to just work with them again in whatever capacity they’ll have me.”

He was fired from Practical Magic!! “Well, I’ve been fired more than once, and I think at least one of those times I wanted to quit, but I refused to because I wanted to be paid. Well, maybe the polite way is I was “replaced.” I’ve told those stories. I don’t know if I want to dig ’em up right now. [For one, Olyphant was recast with Aidan Quinn in 1998’s Practical Magic.]

He turned down Vin Diesel’s role in Fast & Furious: “The pitfall here is that it’s very hard to answer that question without feeling like I’m offending somebody. So, if I start saying, “No, it’s never occurred to me,” or “No, I’ve never seen those movies,” it just starts to sound like … ugh, let’s say I didn’t ever say that. I love those movies. I’m thrilled that they worked for everybody involved… I love attention as much as the next guy in the Screen Actors Guild. Hell, I’m talking to you right now. But mostly — and let me stress mostly — I’ve thought to myself, “Thank God I am not any more famous than I am.” I just think it would be bad for everybody involved.

His level of fame: “I don’t have famous people problems, and yet I get to work with you name them. It’s a sweet spot, and I may finally be ruining it with these next couple gigs. But at this point in my life? F–k it.”

What he thinks of reboots/endless sequels: “Every experience I’ve had revisiting characters or working with the same people again, I’m batting a thousand in terms of it being really gratifying. I highly recommend it. And I don’t have a problem with people remaking or rebooting things. I mean, everybody goes to Broadway to see the same couple plays every few years. It’s such a dumb, shallow argument to say Hollywood has no new ideas just because they’re rebooting things.

On his friendship with Walton Goggins: “Let me tell you something: Walt Goggins is one of my favorite actors I’ve ever worked with. I love him. I would even say I have a deep friendship with that man, and so I only care about the things that he and I say directly to each other….There are a lot of different ways of [doing this job], and he has his. We were in Bangkok for Alien when he was in Ko Samui for The White Lotus. My wife and I went down specifically to hang out with him. Anytime you see a friend on the other side of the world, it’s like, “Hey, look at us!” He seemed to be having a good time to me.

He’s a descendant of the Vanderbilt family but he never met Anderson Cooper: “You’re goddamn right I am, and somebody owes me money. It’s on my to-do list to head to upstate New York and see if I can get the keys to the house. I’ve never met Anderson. I assume that’s just because I keep missing the family reunions due to work and the kids. But now that I’m an empty-nester, I hope we’ll be having drinks soon.

[From THR]

For some reason, it makes perfect sense that he’s a Vanderbilt descendent, right? It’s not a surprise. I would imagine he has some very interesting people in his family tree. Anyway, this is basically an example of an actor who is famous but not a household name, a working actor who can command a decent salary and headline a TV show, and someone completely well-adjusted and mellow. There’s Timothy Olyphant and maybe Keanu Reeves. The two most Zen people in the industry. Love what he says about Goggins too – those two men love each other, I never believed that they had any beef.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.