Timothy Olyphant – Justified: City Primeval, a sequel to the popular neo-western series Justified, is set to return to the screens sometime in the middle of this year. As you might expect, Timothy Olyphant will reprise his role as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a law enforcement officer in modern times who does his job in the style of a 19th-century Old West lawman. This is the perfect occasion to take a look at Olyphant’s life, and career, and share a few things to know about this amazing actor.
Timothy Olyphant comes from a wealthy family
The Vanderbilts were, at one point, the wealthiest family in the United States, having made their fortune from operating railroads across the nation. While the family doesn’t retain its wealth and status today, the name Vanderbilt is still associated with flair and fortune.
Timothy Olyphant is a member of the Vanderbilt family – his fourth great-grandfather was Cornelius Vanderbilt, the one who laid the foundation for the family fortune.
He almost became an architect
Throughout his childhood, Olyphant was a competitive swimmer. In 1986, he was a finalist in the US National Swimming Championship and later joined USC on a swimming scholarship. There, he wanted to study architecture, having enjoyed art and drawing, but it was incompatible with his training routine, so he opted to earn a BFA.
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Ultimately he gave up his BFA, which he only finished 30 years later, during the pandemic. He also gave up on swimming, leaving his work as a swimming coach and moving to New York to explore other options, where he performed as a stand-up comedian and learned acting.
Timothy Olyphant rose to prominence in a Western series
Olyphant started his career as a stage actor and received various awards. He made his movie and TV debuts on the same day: the movie “The First Wives Club” was released on the day the pilot for the CBS spy series Mr. & Mrs. Smith was airing. From then on, he played in many productions, taking on the role of a film student turned serial killer in Scream 2, a love interest for Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, and a drug dealer in Go. He played in everything from action movies to romantic comedies and was ultimately typecast as a “talkative, Jack Nicholson–styled, funny bad boy”.
Ultimately, he rose to prominence in the HBO Western series Deadwood, taking on the role of Sheriff Seth Bullock, which gave him the opportunity to break out of his type, this time playing a brooding lawman.
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Timothy declined the role of Dominic Toretto
Having played “second fiddle to a car” in Gone in 60 Seconds – he played a detective, but Nic Cage and the supercars stealing the spotlight – he has sparked the interest of Sony. The studio wanted to cast him as the lead of a new project called Redline, about a crew performing high-speed highway heists. The lead character was called Dominic Toretto, and the movie was later retitled The Fast and the Furious.
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Back in the day, Olyphant declined the role, thinking that the concept was stupid, and would bomb at the box office. The role went to Vin Diesel instead.
He accepted the role of Agent 47
Olyphant and Diesel seem to have been replacing each other on various projects. Diesel replaced Olyphant in The Fast and the Furious – and Olyphant replaced Diesel in Hitman.
Hitman is a successful video game franchise about a nameless agent trained to be the perfect assassin. The original game franchise has eight main entries and several expansions, two film adaptations, and has even inspired one of the best online pokies for real money, Microgaming’s “Hitman”. The Hitman slot machine is played to this day by Aussie fans of the video game, making it one of the longest-running and most successful real-money pokies ever to be released.
We say “fans of the video game” because, although the movie was a box office success, and Olyphant’s rendition of Agent 47 was flawless, the movie was never loved by the audiences, and was destroyed by the critics. Its planned sequel was never filmed.
In conclusion
Timothy Olyphant is a fascinating actor with a rich and varied background. He comes from a wealthy family and was a competitive swimmer before pursuing a career in acting. Although he appeared in many productions, it was his role in the HBO Western series Deadwood that truly launched him into the spotlight. He was the original Agent 47 in the film adaptation of the Hitman video game franchise, later taking on the role of Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, a role for which he even received an Emmy nomination.
As we eagerly anticipate his return to the screen in Justified: City Primeval, it’s clear that Timothy Olyphant is an actor with an impressive range and a unique perspective on the industry.
Source: LatestCelebArticles
