Austin Nichols has an impressive resume with such projects as Ray Donovan, John from Cincinnati, The Walking Dead, One Tree Hill, and The Day After Tomorrow, but to fans of The CW’s Walker, he was bank robber Clint West in Season 1 of the Jared Padalecki-starring series. Tonight (June 9), he returns to Walker not as Clint West, but as the director of the episode which is called “Search and Rescue.” KSiteTV was able to interview Austin Nichols about tonight’s impactful show. Big spoilers are censored, but the stories within are great!
KSITETV’S CRAIG BYRNE: What can you tease about Thursday night’s new Walker?
AUSTIN NICHOLS: I’m so excited for everybody to see it. It’s episode 218, and it’s called “Search and Rescue.” It’s very exciting, and it’s not like other Walker episodes, because basically, Stella and Colton go on their first date, on a hike, and something very, very awful happens. I can’t tell you what, but basically, someone needs to be rescued. It’s a dire situation, and somebody’s life is in danger. I will say this: There may be a helicopter involved.
Were there any directors that you found to be inspirational in how you approach directing?
I have so many. The first guy that jumps into my mind is Robert Altman. I watched, if not everything he ever made, almost everything. And P.T. Anderson, who I think was also really inspired by Robert Altman. He’s probably my favorite living director. Hal Ashby is one of my favorite directors. His films I still watch… I repeat and watch them all the time. I’m reading a book about him right now. It has all of his interviews.
I love Westerns. I’ve always loved all kinds of different Westerns. I watched so many old John Ford movies and, and, you know, learned so much from these great, classic directors. I’m sure I’m leaving people out there, but those are some of them.
You mentioned your love of Westerns. Is that something that drew you to Walker in the first place as an actor, because it’s almost like a modern Western?
Absolutely. I remember watching an episode early on in Season 1 where there was a horse that was loose in the city. That visual is so interesting to me to see – a horse on an asphalt street in the middle of Austin, Texas, and Walker had to get this horse and get it to where it needed to be. I just loved that intersection of the country and the city, or rural and urban. I just loved that about the show, and I was like “this is definitely something I’m interested in” when they asked me to play Clint West.
The creator Anna Fricke said, “oh, he’s a bank robber and a bull rider.” How do you say no to that? That’s so fun! It’s a fun world. And, you know, it’s got association to Walker Texas Ranger and obviously Chuck Norris, so that’s really fun. Obviously, this is completely new and different, which is great. But yeah, I’ve always loved Westerns. I want to be involved with as many of them as I can. I always say to people, as soon as you put somebody on a horse, there are no bad angles when an actor or an actress is on a horse, and everybody immediately just looks so cool, and so heroic. There’s just something about cowboy hats and boots and guns and all the iconography of the Western. It’s uniquely American and special.
Were you tempted to bring any horses into this rescue mission?
I would have loved to have had horses in my episode, but that’s a big ask, I think, for me to go to the writers and say “can I get some horses into this show?”
“Austin, we’re giving you a helicopter! No, you cannot have horses.”
On the subject of Clint West… Matt Barr is playing an ancestor of Hoyt Rawlins in the new prequel spinoff Walker: Independence. Is there any chance that Clint might have a lookalike ancestor as well?
You know, it’s a really great idea, and I’d be lying if I told you that it has not been talked about. So, I think there is talk, but until it actually happens and the writers put it down on paper, who knows.
That’s one thing that’s so cool about the spin off; the being able to play with ancestry in our relatives and seeing a Genesis story and how they came to be in Texas. It’s going to be a lot of fun to see Matt play that role. I love Matt. He was such a pleasure to work with on Walker, and he’s so talented, and charismatic, and fun. I cannot wait to see him on Independence. But yeah, if I could, if I could go work with him again and do something like that, that would be a lot of fun.
Also, if you got to direct for that show, you might get your horse!
Definitely on that show, I’d have my horses!
Were there any specific production challenges you ran into in filming this episode?
We had this waterfall picked out during scouting at McKinney Falls State Park in Austin. It’s a gorgeous waterfall, and when we scouted it, it was the perfect amount of water. It wasn’t too dangerous. It wasn’t too small. We could put a stuntman in the water, and go over the waterfall, and everything would be great. But as the weeks went by before I started shooting, it got less, and less, and less, and I started calling people, going “I don’t know, guys, It seems like there’s not going to be enough water in the waterfall; we might have come up with a Plan B.” We never really came up with a Plan B.
Then, we were shooting at the studio and I started going around doing a rain dance in my house. I was hoping and praying for rain, and then the day before we were going to shoot that scene, it started raining, and it started raining so hard that there was lightning and we had to shut down at the studio. We were using generators, and when there’s lightning, you have to shut off the generators.
Anyway… it was a torrential downpour, and our executive producer Steve Robin said “I’m going to go out to the park to look at the waterfall,” and he sent me a video of a flood. He said “there’s no way we can put even a stuntman in this water. It’s dangerous.” So we’re trying to figure out what we’re gonna do. We got there the next morning, and the waterfall was still really big and powerful, but it had waned and gone down a lot. It turns out that this waterfall is very finicky, and it changes quickly. So by the time we got to that scene in the afternoon, the waterfall was perfect. The planets aligned. The sun came out, and the waterfall was perfect. The sun was great. It’s amazing how things tend to work out, but that was that was a nail biter there for a while.
Were there any real search and rescue professionals involved in the production of this episode?
We had a guy – a helicopter expert who lives in California, and this is what he did. He e was one of those guys that goes down with the cage or repels down from the helicopter and saves people in canyons. He answered all our questions and was was really helpful. We also put him in the show.
Is there a joy for you in shooting something in Austin, Texas, which I think I read is where you grew up?
Absolutely. I’ve worked in Austin a few times. I worked on Friday Night Lights. I’ve done a couple of indie movies in Austin. I lived in L.A. for a long time, and I’ve worked in South America, and London, and all over… but working at home, and going home to your own bed every night is really fun. And also, I think one of the things that I hope I brought to the table is I know the town, and I know the locations. It sounds stupid, but when we were out shooting on the ranch, where we shot the [SPOILER] stunt when [SPOILER], I’m familiar with the terrain. I know the trees, and I know the creek, and I grew up there. So I know the land, and that helps in maybe a small way. But there’s something nice about having some knowledge of a place, and making a film or a TV show about that place. I think that’s why Jeff Nichols puts all of his movies in Texas and Arkansas, where he has lived, and the Farrelly brothers put everything in Rhode Island. Take what you know. I think that can really strengthen your work.
How did you feel to get to work in an episode with so many major revelations and plot points?
I remember looking at Steve Robin, and I said, “this moment with [SPOILER] at the end. This is what we’ve been waiting for. This is one of the most important beats of the entire season.” We talked about that in our tone meeting in pre-production. It was like “you have all these stunts, you have a helicopter, you have all this great fun stuff. Don’t forget that this moment is huge! This is a huge plot point in season.” So you’re right, there was a lot going on.
So much happens when you come to the end of the season. So I was lucky to get episode 18. You know, I was originally supposed to be 14, and it just so happened and I got lucky to get 18, because you know TV. It all starts here to explode at the end. It’s really fun, and I got a great script [to direct].
What types of projects would you like to direct in the future?
I love making television, obviously, [but] movies were my first love. There’s not as many movies as there used to be, obviously, but I love science fiction. I love Westerns. I love true crime stuff. I love True Detective. I love sports stories. And I love this new show Candy, and The Staircase, and all of that. Even the docuseries like The Jinx and Making A Murderer… I love stuff like that. Right now, I really just want to find the next thing and just do the best job I can, and keep looking for opportunities. I’ve got my eye on everything.
Do you have anything else you’d like to say to the fans who will be reading this?
It was a real treat playing Clint West in Season 1, and sadly, I had to die, but coming back as a director has been a real been a real cherry on top. So I hope they enjoy the episode, and hope I get to be in the Walker family moving forward. It’s been really great.
A gallery of photos from “Search and Rescue” can be found here – look below for a trailer! This new episode of Walker airs TONIGHT (June 9) at 8PM ET/PT on The CW.
