It Is Always Timothy Olyphant Season

Sometimes ubiquity hits the taste buds like piss from a punch bowl. Walton Goggins’ Wal-Mart and GoDaddy commercials unendingly blanketing ad blocks, is an example that seemingly cut into his previously universal popularity with a few eye rolls. Goggins’ Justified co-star, Timothy Olyphant, is giving us a different flavor of omnipresence. The 58-year-old actor keeps popping up in myriad shows and films every year, bringing leading man gravitas to supporting roles, cameos, and the occasional ensemble standout. And it doesn’t seem like he’s going to stop anytime soon.

Of course, Olyphant has a long history of finding takers for his mix of substance and charm. In the late ’90s, he introduced himself with roles in Scream 2 and Go, where he had a “stove-hot-gotta-touch-it” bad boy quality. In 2004, his appeal deepened with a role playing a nails-tough sheriff in Deadwood for David Milch.

The law has been good to Olyphant. In 2010, he played another small-town sheriff in the criminally under-remembered remake of The Crazies, which brought him back from a pair of high-profile one-note roles in Hitman and Live Free Or Die Hard. The Crazies was immediately followed by the premiere of Justified, with Olyphant playing a more swagger-heavy diviner of good, bad, and dead as US Marshall Raylan Givens.

A post-Justified dip into comedy with the delightful Santa Clarita Diet came next. Playing a realtor struggling to feed his zombie wife’s need for flesh built up Olyphant’s comedic bona fides. Those had been teased in his guest spots on The Office and in Justified’s more darkly comedic moments, but now it was undeniable..

Since the unfortunate end of Santa Clarita Diet in 2019, Olyphant has kept extremely busy without staying in one creative place for too long. He’s revisited his two most enduring roles in the Deadwood movie and Justified: City Primeval. He got to make an all-too-brief appearance as yet another cowboy lawman in the sprawling Star Wars franchise, popped up in high-end comedies like Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Good Place (as a version of Raylan), and also added his voice to countless projects.

Olyphant has also made cameos in films from heavyweights like Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) and David O. Russell (Amsterdam). He’s led the ensembles for prestige projects like Steven Soderbergh’s limited kidnap drama Full Circle and the 4th season of Noah Hawley’s Fargo anthology, as well. In the solo season of Daisy Jones & The Six, Olyphant works in a more supporting role, rocking an amazing mane and mustache combo as the band’s manager.

Most recently, Olyphant starred in Hawley’s Alien Earth, which will return for a second season at some point in the future. It’s his most high-profile project, but not one that necessarily rises or falls on him. He’s also coming back for the second season of the Owen Wilson-starring golf comedy, Stick, He’ll (briefly) reprise his Once Upon A Time In Hollywood role in the David Fincher-directed sequel. This will all follow his appearance as a murderous escaped con in the deep dark comedy Over Your Dead Body, his co-starring role as the dodgy daddy of Anya Taylor-Joy’s con artist in Lucky, and the tempting townie from the Jennifer Garner character’s romantic past in Five Star Weekend.

All of this proves that it is always Timothy Olyphant season. And that is never a bad thing. This level of busyness and career diversity is the reward for an actor who has carved out a pretty wide lane, ingratiating himself to audiences and directors with his switchable mix of steely determination, a disarming smile, a hard edge, and an easygoing vibe. A man who looks right in any era and any hat - quite literally.

That Olyphant chooses to play the journeyman card over installing himself as the load-bearing wall in any one project seems like something that makes it easier to avoid the burdens that come with that job. Including reduced freedom of movement. The biggest takeaway, though, is that this strategy seems like a means for Olyphant to keep challenging himself in the fourth decade of his career as he keeps finding variations on a winning formula.