How ‘Dark Winds’ got a Robert Redford/George RR Martin Cameo

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It comes 23 minutes into the season-three premiere at Dark windAnd it lasts about 30 seconds. But the scene where a guy named Robert Redford and another guy named George Rr Martin appears on screen has been in creation for years.

“It was in the air since the first season,” says Chris Eyre, director of season three’s premiere, “Ye’iitsoh (Big Monster).” But it took three seasons to actually film a scene that included the author of A game throne And the star and director of some of the biggest films ever made, both of which are performing producers at AMC’s spiritual procedural about the Navajo stem pole policemen in the 1970s.

When a potential performance in the season two-finals was scrapped, Martin approached Showrunner John Wirth ahead of season three with an idea for a scene with him and Redford as prisoners who played chess within a small cell inside the police department. Last year the couple shot a short back and forth which also gave Dark wind Star and performing producer Zahn McClarnon – Lieutenant Joe Lephorn in the world of the series – the opportunity to act with two friends who are also happening to be cultural idols. (LEAPHORN’s contribution to the conversation is to imply the step that leads to Martin’s character that controls Redford.)

“I never thought I could come to a place in my life where I would actually know Robert Redford, so much less being in a scene with him,” says McClarnon. Getting to that moment, however, was complicated. “I was never really sure it would happen until it happened,” Wirth adds.

Tina Elmo, a Dark wind EP, close to Redford, was the first person to turn to Wirth to link a como to Redford and Martin. “He really wants to do this,” Wirth remembers her, who said in the second season, “and he wants to do it with George.” Wirth came with a concept. “In season two, there was little talk about someone who had seen UFOs, and this crazy, five -horn sheep was this stranger on earth,” he says. “So the idea for these guys was a Men in black thing. They would appear in suits in this black truck looking for the sheep. Steven Paul Judd and I wrote a couple-page scene and we sent it to Bob and George. “

It looked like the comosis was a trip … until Redford and Martin happen that Redford and Martin visited production the same day earlier in the season and Martin supported. “Bob tried to talk George into it on set,” Wirth remembers. “He said, ‘I will do it if George does.’ So Zahn McClarnon and me, performer Jim Chory, star Kiowa Gordon, we were all there and tried to convince George to say yes. And George wouldn’t say yes. “

“We had already gone down quite a bit downstream of this,” Wirth continues. “We built Men in black Suits for each of these guys. It ended up being pretty expensive. We got Men in black lorry. We had the sheep. Then there was some panic because the sheep had been attacked by coyotes and died almost almost almost so they couldn’t show up on the camera. It just got nuts. “

Words came back to Wirth, which Martin might have backed up because of a line he had pasted in the stage. “I had seen George on a talk show in the evening and they had made a shit that he was unable to finish the latest Game of Throne Books, ”says Wirth. “It was a very funny bit. So I had written a line in this little scene about it, just an allusion to finish something. I assume George had taken it to make fun of his inability to end this novel, so he said no. “

Martin had also joked with Wirth that he was reluctant to appear on the screen opposite “the most beautiful man who had ever been on the camera,” as: fair. “I can relate,” says Wirth. “It’s always rough for a writer to be on stage with actors because they look beautiful, and we usually don’t.”

Martin changed his mind as the season three rolled around and brought the chess game idea to Wirth. Showrunner liked it, though it was a bit of a non -sequent. “You have to ask yourself, What do two old white men do in a Navajo tribal police prison cell? But if you shoot a little, you don’t think too much about it. You could probably get past it. “

Director Eyre came with a back story for the actors. “They were Roustabouts who had become drunk and disorder in a nearby town like Flagstaff, Arizona, and then he went when they were released and sent to Navajo Nation,” he explains. “They were picked up there by one of the LEAHN’s deputies.” It turns out that the back story was not exactly needed, Eyre admits: “They never asked me,” he says with a smile, “but I was ready.”

The scene was shot on a closed set at the request of Redford who last appeared on the screen in Avengers: EndgameA commo he shot after announcing his retirement from shopping in 2016. There was tangible excitement among the crew, but also some anxiety. “I have known Bob for decades and just to sit there Oh i will instruct Robert RedfordAt Beating fear in me, ”says Eyre. “Bob is so friendly and he was so nice on the day, and so was George. But I remember Zahn turning to me when we were about to start shooting and he’s going, ‘You’re making a scene with Robert Redford, it’s incredible,’ and I said, ‘Zahn, will you be quiet? You make me nervous. ” ‘

“I was unclear, but I was a nervous dizzy,” says McClarnon. “My behavior on sets, and in real life, I assume – I don’t talk much. I’m a little on that shy side. It looks like I’m furious, but I’m really not. I just focus on what to do. That day I couldn’t take the smile off my face. Tina Elmo came up and said, ‘Oh my God, I’ve never seen you smile so much.’ “

Originally, the scene would not involve dialogue. In the script, the characters did not even get specific names. “Then I heard that Bob would say something and he would call George ‘Gene,'” says Wirth. “I was like,” okay, fair enough. “” The genre reference was not – Redford refers to his stage partner as George – but some dialogue, including ironically, did an AD -LIB from Redford about Martin, who took too long to get his next chess moving. “George, the whole world is waiting,” says Redford, a comment on it could interpreted as a slu reference to the fact that Martin still has not delivered the last two volumes of his Song of ice and fire series.

“It’s one thing if I write a line and George perceives me as making fun of him – even though I wasn’t, and I would never,” Wirth says. “It’s another thing if Redford does.”