Season five of Fargo is here, with Jon Hamm, Juno Temple and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the cast. It is set in Minnesota and North Dakota in 2019, and Temple’s housewife character Dot is in a bit of trouble.
Hamm’s Roy Tillman is a North Dakota sheriff who is searching for Dot. FX describes Tillman as “a rancher, preacher and a constitutional lawman” who “believes that he is the law and therefore is above the law.”
Two episodes are on FX November 21 and then Hulu November 22.
Hamm, who of course played Don Draper on Mad Men, told B+C he was a fan of the Fargo movie, which came out in 1996, and was “skeptical” that showrunner and director Noah Hawley could successfully adapt it into a TV series. “But I was wildly pleased when I saw the first season, and then over the moon when I saw what they had done with subsequent seasons,” Hamm said. “I was tremendously happy to be asked to be in this one.”
Tillman “quickly establishes himself as a major force in this season’s story,” Hamm said. “He’s a very particular, very powerful, very scary character, so it was fun to play.”
Joe Keery, who plays Steve Harrington in Stranger Things, portrays Tillman’s feckless son Gator. Sam Spruell plays Ole Munch, a shady drifter that Tillman enlists to help find Dot. David Rysdahl plays her husband Wayne. Jennifer Jason Leigh is Wayne’s mother, the CEO of a debt collection agency and a bit of a crime boss.
Temple, an English actress who plays Keeley Jones in Ted Lasso, mentioned the countless dialect sessions she had with Fargo’s speech coach to get the upper Midwest accent just right. She mentioned the show representing “one of the greatest challenges for an actor to be asked to be part of,” and how its unique tone, that peculiar mix of horror and comedy, “literally titillates every aspect of being an actor.”
Temple would stay in the dialect in between takes on the set. “If you make mistakes, you get used to it, so you don’t actually ruin the take,” she said.
Leigh described shooting the show as “such a great ride, and you never know where you’re going or where you’ll end up. But you know you’ll be surprised … and so entertained.”
Fargo shot in Calgary. Hamm called the setting “absolutely stunning,” and quite cold.
The actors were excited to work with Hawley. “I put my faith very much in him when it comes time to do something like this,” Hamm said. “I know he’ll treat not only the character but the story and the season and the show with the utmost care. He’ll come at the story and the whole process from a tremendously creative place.”
Temple likened working with Hawley to being asked to sit in the front row for a lecture by her favorite professor. “It’s both intimidating and one of the thrills of a lifetime,” she said.
Temple mentioned incredibly precise direction from Hawley. Leigh spoke of his knack for using every available tool to enhance his storytelling, from tweaking the scripts to knowing exactly where to place the camera.
“You just know you’re in such good hands and you can’t wait to see it,” Leigh said. “He has such good insights into every character and the tone is so specific.”
Season five reviews look pretty positive. The Los Angeles Times said: “Every season sings in its own key, builds up its own nest of details. Three-fifths of the way in, the story feels comparatively conventional, notwithstanding that medieval flashback. But with four hours left to go — two whole Fargo movies — there are certainly surprises ahead, twists around corners hidden behind corners. Things will probably get crazy, and I’m eager to see it.”
Variety said: “Fargo is a testament to the value of creativity within constraints, reworking a 27-year-old movie into a living text. It’s an experiment that works better when it doesn’t explicitly argue for its own continued relevance.”
Fargo has some things to say about the current state of affairs in America. Rolling Stone refers to Hamm’s character as a “MAGA Sheriff.” For his part, Hamm likened him to “some of the people we see on TV quite a bit.” He said of Tillman, “At the end of the day, if you decide to take the law into your own hands that’s probably not going to be sustainable.”
The actors said Fargo once again delivers in terms of being unpredictable. “We’re constantly learning things and being surprised by every character in every chapter of Fargo,” Leigh said. “The character you might be the most horrified by, or like the most–then you suddenly realize, who have I been identifying with all this time?”
Hamm said: “There’s always something unexpected when you tune in. … Expect something that’s going to be creative and enjoyable and entertaining.”
