‘Duster’ is a strikingly light series, even though people regularly come to their end. “The main goal was a series that has fun.”

A ringing phone in the middle of the desert, a bright red Muscle Car Who stops with screaming tires in front of the telephone booth, and releases actor Josh Holloway who gets out. They are the opening minutes of the new HBO Max series Dusterbut it was also the only thing that writer and producer JJ Abrams (Lost, aka) had come up with when he asked fellow scenarist Latoya Morgan to create the series together with him years ago. “He didn’t have more than that image in his head,” says Morgan during a video interview from Los Angeles.

Yet was the screenwriter, who was previously on series such as The Walking Dead and Into the Badlands Worked, fascinated by the scene that her colleague outlined. “I immediately had all kinds of ideas about who the man who gets out of the car could be, and what his nasty and cunning plans were.” What followed was something that Morgan describes as ‘jazz’; An endless back and forth between the two writers in which they exchanged all kinds of ideas and sources of inspiration. “Once we knew that the man was in the desert to do something terrible, we decided that he would work for a crime family.” According to Morgan, this again led to an exploration of their favorite crime stories. “We were talking about The Godfather, The Parallax View, everything from Tarantino, Scorsese and the Coen brothers. How could we give a fresh twist to those classics?”

This fresh twist eventually became Duster, an eight episode (first) season about Jim (Holloway), a slick ‘Getaway Driver’ for a mafia boss (played by Keith David) in the American southwest of the 1970s. Jim is a man with long, shiny blonde locks who wears a blouse open to the muscular breast on a tight jeans with wide legs. Someone who seems to be getting away with everything thanks to the dimples in his cheeks and fast cars. Until he meets Nina (Rachel Hilson), an inexperienced but very driven FBI agent who-as the first black woman at the intelligence office-hopes to prove herself by recruiting the driver as an infiltrator to dismantle the crime syndicate together with her.

Old -fashioned children’s advertising

Duster Is a strikingly light series, even though people regularly come to their end. The sunny filter, the 1970s clothing and uplifting hits on the soundtrack splashing from the screen give it something cheerful. And also the intro of racing toy cars created by JJ Abrams, which is most reminiscent of old -fashioned children’s advertising, is – in addition to extremely skilled – especially fun. “Our goal was a series that exudes pleasure,” Morgan agrees. “JJ and I made each other laugh all the time by coming up with the most idiotic murderers and the wildest chases. One of the nicest things about this series is that you never know who is behind which door.”

According to the screenwriter, the series fits in with the current television trend where old series formats are revived. Such as colleague HBO Max-Series The Pitt A contemporary version of the 90s hospital series There is, she sees Duster as a return to 70s and 80s series as Starsky & Hutch and The Fall Guy. “The kind of series that is currently not real,” said Morgan. “We wanted to make something that you start when you get home from your work to escape.”

Not that Duster has no deeper layers, or groceries that resonate in our time. Especially Nina and her colleague Awan (Asivak Koostachin), an agent of indigenous American descent, are fully dealing with prejudices and open racism. What it was like to be a minority in a traditional white environment such as the FBI at that time is something that the makers have done plenty of research. “That piece had to be as authentic as possible,” says Morgan. “But where we took that very seriously, we also proud that our characters had fun. Because the main goal remained to entertain the viewers.”

Groovy

Leading actor Holloway describes the tone of the series as “hey was set from the outset by Abrams and Morgan, as follows:” Yes, nasty things happen, but let’s keep it “groovy.” During a group conversation with international journalists via Zoom, the actor tells him that he liked the series the most. “After looking, you don’t stay behind with an emotional hangover, as with most series of the moment. They are the seventies. Let’s have fun.”

Holloway, who became known as Sawyer in the hit series created by Abrams Unloadinggrew up in the 70s. For inspiration, he did not have to look beyond his own childhood in the Georgia countryside and his own father, a man with tight, far -reaching blouses and a large bunch of curls. “It was a time when everyone could be sexy. People walked with a confident step, they had Swagger and were pronounced themselves. Wonderful,” he says with the so -characteristic broad grin.

Holloway did not have to think long about whether he wanted to play Jim, a character created by Abrams especially for him. In fact, after reading the first lines of the script and the year ‘1972’, he was already over: “Everything at that time attracts me. The Muscle Cars, that explosion of music, drugs, fashion and individualism. The end of the Vietnam War and people who were increasingly revolting and used their voice. It is such a rich period.”

Morgan also emphasizes how essential the early 1970s are for the series: “It is not only a terribly lively, and less cynical time, but the story simply does not work if it plays in our present. Then everyone would text each other. But because they are the seventies, they have to go to each other. They have to step into those cars and on the road.”

Muscle Cars

That the cars in question Muscle Cars Being is not unimportant either. Because in addition to driver Jim and FBI agent Nina, Duster also has a main character. A what the series is even named after: Jim’s red Plymouth Duster. An American car that was made for only a few years, from 1969 to 1976, and was very consciously selected by Abrams and Morgan. “There are quite a few iconic cars,” says Morgan. She mentions Steve McQueen’s Mustang from the film BullitJames Bonds Aston Martin, Kitt from Knight Rider and General Lee, the Oranje Dodge Charger The Dukes of Hazzard. “We wanted a car of the same caliber and the Duster jumped above it.” Not only because the car has speed and precision, Morgan says, but mainly because it was only produced for a short time. “As a result, not many people know him. And that means that we can make it iconic.”

To share





Mail the editors