Josh Holloway And Ryan Whitaker Bring Louis L’Amour’s “Flint” To Life On Screen

For veteran actor Josh Holloway (Lost, Colony, Yellowstone, Duster), the road to Flint began more than two decades ago, when the Georgia native first read Louis L’Amour’s tale of a dying gunfighter drawn into one last battle. Over the years, Holloway pursued the project through starts, stops, and near-misses—until director and screenwriter Ryan Whitaker (Surprised by Oxford) entered the picture with the right script, the right connections, and the right timing. In this conversation for Writing the West podcast, Holloway and Whitaker talk about the unlikely series of events that finally brought Flint into production, the creative choices that shaped their adaptation, and why they believe now is the perfect time for western stories to thrive again.

Transcript

For Josh Holloway, the road to Flint began more than two decades ago, when the Georgia native first read Louis L’Amour’s tale of a dying gunfighter drawn into one last battle. Over the years, Holloway pursued the project through starts, stops, and near-misses—until director and screenwriter Ryan Whitaker entered the picture with the right script, the right connections, and the right timing. In this conversation for Writing the West, a podcast from Cowboys & Indians magazine, Holloway and Whitaker talk about the unlikely series of events that finally brought Flint into production, the creative choices that shaped their adaptation, and why they believe now is the perfect time for western stories to thrive again.

[This interview had been edited for length and clarity.]

Cowboys & Indians: Let’s start with how Flint came together. Then we’ll get into filming and finish by talking about westerns and the state of the genre.

Josh Holloway: Okay. Well, basically, yeah, I mean, I grew up in the north Georgia Mountains. You go outside of any city within an hour, you’re seeing Louis L’Amour books on people’s bookshelves. That’s what I grew up with. My father was very educated. They all loved reading. So, anyway, I grew up reading and tend to lean toward that genre. I loved the quickness of his books—they weren’t too long—so I grew up reading them.

I came across Flint maybe 28 or 30 years ago, and I loved it. It was a perfect movie. I felt like it just wrote itself. At the time, I was on Lost, and I thought, “Well, I’m going to use this platform.” I always said to my wife, “I’m going to pick up where Clint left off. I’m going to find that road.” And I think Louis L’Amour is the path to that.

So, I looked up his legacy, found out his son was in charge of everything, and contacted him. He met me at a bar in a hotel when I was still on Lost, 20 years ago. I told him, “I want to do this movie.” He said, “You’re too young.” I said, “I can gray my beard, man,” because the character is supposed to be about my age now.

We tried to work some things out, but Lost was a monster of a machine. We were filming 22 episodes a year, with only two months off, so we couldn’t get a movie done. We kept putting it on hold. Then I lost contact with Beau [L’Amour, Louis L’Amour’s son] because I was on another show. Things just got crazy. I’d reach out again, we’d exchange a few emails, then nothing.

I really started pursuing him again in the last few years after Yellowstone. I thought, “This is the time.” I was going to be relentless. I got my agency on it, and he was open to it because Beau is also a screenwriter, and I think he would like to see his father’s legacy respected and brought to life in that way.

I brought him into UTA, and he got his entire legacy represented. I had no idea they hadn’t had representation in 40 years. I’m like, “That IP? Are you joking me — in America?” That was huge. Once that happened, we started trying all kinds of things. I pitched a True Detective–style series — one book a season, changing directors and actors. That didn’t work. Then I pitched Flint with a different ending — he doesn’t die of cancer. That didn’t work either. I kept pitching, and finally, I kind of gave up.

Then Ryan [Whitaker, director/screenwriter of Flint] showed up—like a magic carpet. I’d been running into nothing but blocks for 20 years, and Ryan slides in with Beau. I didn’t even know they had just met. I thought they’d known each other forever. Come to find out, they had just met. Then I thought, “Okay, this is actually happening.” I didn’t believe it much because of things like what had just recently happened with Rust. Statistically, I thought, “This is not going to happen.”

Then I was doing another movie, and Ryan calls me in Albuquerque and says, “Would you be willing to go to Sarasota, Florida, and meet this billionaire?” I’m like, “Episode of Entourage? Yes — let’s do this.” We got our little team together — Nick Barnes, who found this guy and is an amazing guy who works at a division of UTA in Nashville. That’s also where we found Ryan, our magic carpet man.

We go down there, and we’re like, “Oh, shit—we still don’t have a script.” We had a good idea, but we put all that pressure on Ryan: “Okay, now where’s the script?” I literally had no reference for whether Ryan could write or not. I thought, “Oh boy…” And then it was brilliant. The first draft came in, and I thought, “Who is this masked man?”

We got the script, the story, the money, and they said, “We’re going into production by July.” I thought, “Yeah, right.” But sure enough, everything Ryan said he would do, he did. He and Ken Carpenter — such a team. Beau — such a team player. Beau gave a few notes on the first draft, maybe 25 pages. Everyone worked together.

When we got on set, I’d never seen that kind of alchemy. We just floated. We had a skeleton crew of the most amazing artists, all in it for love. It was like a family. The alchemy all came together. I can’t believe we’re on the other side of this — it’s crazy.

C&I: You said the timing felt right. With the renewed appetite for westerns thanks to Yellowstone and shows like Dark Winds, what made now the right time for you?

Holloway: Well, you nailed it. Our industry goes through eras and trends—just like the fashion industry — of what’s being greenlit and what you can make at a given time. Thanks to Taylor [Sheridan] and Yellowstone, and a whole creative shift in the climate, the opportunity arose.

Even though I was playing an asshole Wall Street guy on Yellowstone, I got to be part of that wave and feel the need for it. Talking to people out there, I could see how much they were excited this genre was coming back. This is the time to tell western stories. There’s a real audience for it now—they’re speaking out and showing up. That’s why Yellowstone’s ratings were out of this world. The timing presented itself like that—it’s the rollercoaster of our creative world.

C&I: Ryan, as director and screenwriter, did you feel pressure to modernize Flint, or did you always see it as a traditional western?

Ryan Whitaker: I’m a cinephile, and I love classic westerns. What appealed to me was making something in the tradition of those films — John Ford, Anthony Mann, Sergio Leone — seminal works in the genre.

I always saw it in that tradition, but there’s a modern sensibility in the structure. There’s a non-linear approach—we bounce back and forth between past and present for part of the film. The past isn’t black and white. The film is equally influenced by both westerns and film noir, another genre I love. It’s consciously in the tradition of those classics, but it’s not a self-aware, winking-at-the-audience kind of western. It’s grounded and earnest.

C&I: Josh mentioned you were thrown into the fire adapting Louis L’Amour, which isn’t easy. What was that process like, and what was the biggest challenge?

Whitaker: Josh told you his side. For me, I had just finished shooting a series in Europe and went by UTA’s Nashville office to meet Nick Barnes, who Josh mentioned. There’s a division there called Heartland. Nick had signed Beau L’Amour and the L’Amour estate as clients.

Nick asked me, “What do you want to do next? Are you interested in westerns?” I said, “Well, of course. How can you be a director — especially an American director — and not want to make a western at some point?”

He sent me a deck of L’Amour titles they thought would adapt well. I was familiar with L’Amour but hadn’t grown up reading him like so many others. I read a few books. One was Flint.

I told Nick, “I think there’s something really interesting here.” It’s not just an exciting, classic western—there are fascinating thematic ideas. That’s the thing about L’Amour: he wrote fast-paced page-turners, but there’s always interesting thematic material under the surface.

In Flint, you have a man facing his own mortality and a character who assumes the identity of the killer who raised him—almost a Freudian element of identity. I’m always drawn to themes, so I immediately knew what the movie was about thematically.

Nick said, “I think Josh Holloway’s interested in that.” I said, “I’ve always thought Josh should play a cowboy. I’d love to meet him and see if he’d let me write it for him.”

I flew to L.A. to have lunch with Josh. That was only about a year and a half ago—lightning fast compared to other indie films I’ve done. Josh — maybe foolishly — said, “Sure, I’ll attach,” without seeing a script. We raised the money without one.

The challenge was the number of characters and the amount of backstory. We had to decide how much screen time to give the backstory without bogging the film down. I think we kept the most important details.

Holloway: I was amazed at how you were able to do that. One of the most appealing things to me about Flint was its scope. It wasn’t just about the West—it was about a man who was raised in the West, then became a man and a multimillionaire in New York City in that era. And yet, like you said, it didn’t bog down the western side of it. I thought Ryan handled that beautifully and boldly, using black and white and a film noir style, really leaning into that. It’s beautiful.

Whitaker: Yeah, I mean, that is one of the interesting aspects of the story—you have a character who is equal parts West and East. Early on, Beau wisely observed that the western genre, at its heart, is always about the relationship and the tension between the West and the East: the Wild West, the civilized East making its way into the frontier. This story is literally about that.

Porter Baldwin has this land scam he’s concocted, moving down the railroad lines reclaiming railroad land. The railroad itself is an encapsulation of the idea of the East making its way into the West. So, you have all of these ideas baked into the story, which is really compelling.

Holloway: And me — I was born in Santa Clara, California, raised in Georgia my whole life, then moved back to California — so I’m all East-West. I thought, “Oh, this is perfect for me. It makes perfect sense.”

Whitaker: Yeah. And it’s interesting that Flint paid for Jim’s schooling — he sent him to school — so Jim became a lover of books and literature. I think that was a little bit of L’Amour himself in the story. I’m a big reader and a book nerd, so I love that part of it.

C&I: Josh, not only do you connect to this character on the East–West level, but now you’re also closer to Flint’s age. How different was it playing him now versus 20 years ago?

Holloway: When I was preparing for the role, I always draw from my personal life to put into the character. I thought, “Well, damn—this so parallels my life.” I left the mountains of Georgia, dirt-road poor, modeled all over the world, became an actor, came back West, and now I’m dealing with death—both my parents have passed away.

A good friend of mine had ALS. I had that conversation with him where he said, “I’m dying. See you later.” That gave me the perspective of what it would be like if someone said, “You’re dying, you’ve got a couple of years — maybe.” I had just gone through that with my friend. I used him a lot in the film — our time together, our last moments before he wouldn’t let me see him anymore.

So yes, that life experience changed my perspective. I grew up. I went through that emotional death. There you go.

C&I: This was your first traditional western. Did it change the way you view the genre?

Holloway: Yeah. The funny thing is, I was struggling to slow down — which is very strange. I’ve never in my career been told to slow down. Ryan would come and say, “Maybe just slow it down a click. Bring it back a click.” I’d think, “What? I’m Southern—no one’s ever said that to me. You could drive a bus through my pauses normally.”

But Ryan kept saying, “Just a click.” What that brought me to is this: it’s not all about the dialogue. It’s driven by intention and necessity. That’s the West — necessity and intention. There’s no room for fat. You trim all the fat. It’s survival and basic intentions. Dropping into that was interesting. It took me a minute.

C&I: You were also stepping into the shoes of a character beloved by millions of Louis L’Amour readers. Was there a moment where you felt you’d truly found the character?

Holloway: I was finding him the entire time. There were many of those moments, but right now I have a wash of memories and can’t even think of just one. I had no problem stepping into the role — I was confident I could do it and honor it. I still don’t know exactly what my performance is. Ryan, did I do all right?

Whitaker: I think you did all right. I stepped out of the edit bay to do this interview, and our editor is working on the film right now. It’s looking great. My observation is—it’s a very different role for Josh. We’ve never really seen him play this kind of character before.

Even in this interview, you can sense Josh’s charisma. In a lot of roles he’s played, that’s been an important aspect of the character. In this, it’s a very dark, stoic, brooding character. There are glimmers of that Sawyer-ness that come out here and there, but it’s mostly this new, restrained side.

Holloway: I remember having that discussion with you — “I’ve got to have some mean in there.” And you said, “Trust me, it’s in there.”

C&I: You only met a year and a half ago. How did your working dynamic develop during the film?

Whitaker: Josh has had a relationship with this character and this book for many years, so I trusted he would come prepared and know the role. When you cast well, it makes the job of directing a lot easier.

We had a great cast, beginning with Josh as number one on the call sheet. He set a great tone on set for everyone. Everybody delivered. The adjustments I gave Josh were micro—he had become this guy. Hopefully, he trusted me as much as I trusted him. It was easy.

Holloway: That’s exactly how I feel — it was a trust thing. Every step, Ryan proved himself. First, he actually got Beau on board. Then we found the money. Then he wrote the script. Then we got on set, and I thought, “Wow — this man knows how to film as well.”

It was constant reassurance that I was working with an incredible artist I didn’t even know before. It was smooth. Ryan doesn’t over-direct—he hires the right people. A lot of the time, there wasn’t much said. You’d look, you’d think, “Yeah, okay,” and then — boom — go.

The whole shoot was Jedi-like. Ryan knows how to talk to actors—just little micro-adjustments, and we nailed it, moved right on. For me, it was one of the smoothest, most rewarding experiences of my career.

In TV, you “hose it down,” cover it so much that there’s no way you miss anything. Then most of us end up on the editing floor. There was none of that here. Ryan had a clear vision, and we had no time for that kind of waste. It was art. Every shot mattered and was a conscious effort toward creative fulfillment. That was different for me.

Whitaker: Josh mentioned our cinematographer, Garrett Hardy Davis — he crushed it. I’d worked with very few of the people on this film before. Ken Carpenter had produced a movie of mine. Gerald Escobel, one of our producers, and Ari Novak, our line producer, I’d worked with. But beyond that, they were all new relationships. That can be scary—you hope everyone delivers.

With Garrett, we share the same taste and style. When you’re making a movie, you want everyone making the same movie. That’s always the challenge—managing tone across all departments, including performance. Sometimes we’d try a particular shot and look at each other and say, “Different movie.” Keeping it consistent is key.

C&I: Ryan, you’re in the editing room now. When the film is done, what does success look like for you?

Whitaker: Success is getting this movie in front of the widest audience possible. Obviously, we want it to be profitable—none of us are interested in making something that loses money.

Beyond that, introducing a new generation to L’Amour is exciting. Being part of the rebirth — or renaissance — of the western genre is thrilling. And you always hope you’re making something with cultural impact.

It’s unpredictable in this business, but from a creative perspective, you just want to move people. You want them to track with the story, be moved, be excited. You’re a chef cooking a meal for the audience — you want a good Yelp review afterward.

C&I: Josh, final question. L’Amour films haven’t been made often, but when they have, they’ve featured big names—John Wayne in Hondo, Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott. Now you. What’s success for you as the lead in this film?

Holloway: Already, I feel success just being in that company. I’m a fan of all those actors and books. That alone feels good.

As an actor and artist, a lot of times you have to hold on to the art and the fulfillment of the work you put in, because the business side often turns out differently than you hope.

For me, success means: did I embody that role and give it everything I have? If I didn’t, the audience won’t take the ride. But I took the ride. —so I know they will too.

Of course, I hope for financial success, mainly because I want to open the door to do more of these. I want to make a bunch of these with Ryan. Clint Eastwood has had the same crew for 37 years — I’d like to go down that road.

Right now, I feel like this has already been a success, and I can’t wait to see it.