Latest news with #JoshHolloway
Toronto Sun
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Toronto Sun
Lost for seven years, Josh Holloway is back in driver's seat in Duster
Published May 29, 2025 • Last updated 0 minutes ago • 8 minute read "Duster" star Josh Holloway is headlining a series for the first time since "Colony" ended in 2018. Photo by James Van Evers/Ma / Max/Warner Bros. Discovery Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Josh Holloway was stranded in a Hollywood wasteland five years ago when the phone rang. It was J.J. Abrams, and he was offering a route out of the figurative desert – by way of a literal one. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The third and final season of the Holloway-starring series 'Colony' had aired more than a year earlier. Freshly 50, Holloway accepted that the dystopian drama was probably his last leading-man gig. If the offer came to play, say, a leading man's father? He'd be there. But that wasn't happening, either. 'My agents were like, 'Go take a vacation. You're not going to work,'' recalls Holloway, best known for playing the complicated con man Sawyer on 'Lost.' 'And I didn't for a long time.' Holloway embraced life as a stay-at-home dad while spending his spare time dirt biking, fly-fishing, meditating and steering his Airstream all over. He also honed his guitar skills and learned the piano. On the work front, Holloway dabbled in writing and pitched a reality show about ranch bunkhouses. (It didn't happen.) This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. So when 'Lost' co-creator Abrams rang out of the blue and began hinting at a job offer, Holloway says, he agreed before hearing the pitch. As Abrams subsequently outlined an image from the 1972-set crime series 'Duster' – a muscle car races to a phone in the desert, and out pops Holloway to answer the call – it dawned on the actor that one of Hollywood's most influential creatives was, in fact, shaping a show around him. 'At this age,' Holloway says, 'I really did not expect something like that.' But that didn't mean the lean years were over. Green lit by HBO Max during the pandemic, the pilot didn't shoot until 2021. That pilot was shelved amid the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, then reshot two years later. And the first season was mid-production in 2023 when the Hollywood strikes halted filming for the better part of a year. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. By the time 'Duster' premiered in May on Max, seven years had passed since Holloway last headlined a series. In the meantime, the 55-year-old's only jobs have been a recurring role as a duplicitous hedge fund manager on 'Yellowstone' and one episode of the anthology 'Amazing Stories.' 'With actors, if you don't see them for a while, you think that they're hiding in a closet or something,' his 'Duster' co-star Keith David says. 'People work. You don't see them, but they do work. So it's really wonderful to see him in a leading part. He's the kind of guy who can carry that.' Rachel Hilson plays an FBI agent who recruits Holloway's Jim Ellis as an informant. Photo by Ursula Coyote/Max Sure enough, Holloway still seizes the screen as if he never left it. As Jim Ellis, the rakish driver for a Southwestern organized crime kingpin (David) and an informant for an upstart FBI agent (Rachel Hilson), Holloway is parked right in his wheelhouse. With a sigh or a smile, Jim shakes off life-and-death developments as another day at the office. His shoulder-length locks flow in the desert breeze. Sarcastic quips roll off his tongue, and he throws around nicknames in decidedly Sawyer-like fashion. Yet there's torment and tenderness behind eyes that'll smolder one moment and flicker with sorrow the next. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. It's a classic performance from a dying breed of actor: the career television star. Co-created by Abrams and LaToya Morgan, 'Duster' is a throwback to a forgone era of episodic storytelling, built around charismatic characters and pulpy thrills rather than A-list star power and prestige TV sheen. Driving it all is Holloway, a slick performer with an affinity for fueling his hard-knock characters with hard-knock life experience. 'He's added this quality of having lived a complicated life that is now embedded in his performance, along with his incredible good looks and his soulfulness and his charm,' says Carlton Cuse, a showrunner on 'Lost' and the co-creator of 'Colony.' 'It's just another weapon in his actor's arsenal.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. If Holloway resents the myriad movie stars and Oscar winners who have found refuge on the small screen over the past decade – making it all the harder for TV veterans to book rich roles – he hides it well. 'It makes sense to me,' he muses, 'just because that's where the creativity went. I mean, it's the golden age of TV.' 'I'm super sappy and goofy, but people have an image of me as, like, this cool guy,' Holloway says. 'I can lean into that cliché, but who I am is actually the other guy.' Photo by James Van Evers/Max Toning down the swagger and ramping up the silliness during a mid-May video chat from a New York hotel, the bespectacled actor is an easy laugh with a grin that persists through touchy topics. Far from tech savvy, he cautions people that he leaves his phone at home and might take 48 hours to respond to a text. ('It drives my friends and family crazy,' he concedes. 'I'm not of this era.') Raising an 11-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter with his wife, Yessica, in Southern California, he gleefully rattles off his responsibilities in the Holloway household – 'the Uber service, the cook, the maid, the freaking laundry guy' – and asserts that being a present father is his most cherished role. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'I'm super sappy and goofy, but people have an image of me as, like, this cool guy,' Holloway says. 'I can lean into that cliché, but who I am is actually the other guy.' His 'Duster' co-star Hilson confirms as much. 'If you meet Josh, you'll probably within the first five minutes hear him talk about his kids and his wife,' she says. 'That's just who he is. I think we find ourselves drawn to this edgy character because he just brings to it this natural softness.' Holloway's Jim has been a mafia wheelman for decades when we meet him in 'Duster,' whose eight-episode first season runs through July 3. Bloody and breezy, raunchy and groovy – the series traverses tones while serving as a 1970s travelogue with pit stops involving Elvis Presley, Howard Hughes, Watergate and other period-appropriate touchstones. Whether he's chauffeuring goons, procuring blackmail material or trafficking illicit goods, Jim rarely sheds his devil-may-care mantra. But the character remains haunted by his brother's death years earlier and the discovery that their boss may have been responsible for the hit. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Even though he is obviously an incredibly handsome guy, there is a kind of sadness and anger under the wry and comedic surface,' Abrams says over email. '[Jim] has to be carefree and cool and funny and daring, but he also needs to be broken: someone who stopped evolving at a certain point, someone who is being challenged to wake up, reflect and be held accountable in his life.' Despite that heavy backstory, Holloway assures that playing Jim is mostly a blast – starting with the stunts. After attending Rick Seaman's stunt-driving school, Holloway shifted to lessons with driver Chris Peterson and learned 'every stunt in the book.' Asked whether he's taken those skills out in public, Holloways chuckles. 'I'd be doing that every day,' he says, 'but the computers are, like, anti-skid and this and that, and they just won't let you do it.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Then there's the opportunity to deploy his innate allure. Take a scene in 'Duster' in which Jim heads to a hospital and asks for the status of a gravely wounded patient he would rather not see pull through. Told by a female employee that such information is confidential, Jim flicks his hair, tilts his head and coolly replies, 'Then just give it to me confidentially.' Informed the man's outlook is dire, Jim smirks. 'Darling,' he says, 'you just made my day.' It's an ominous scene that, in Holloway's hands, plays as effortlessly suave. 'I grew up in a time where if you wanted to date, you had to flirt,' he explains through sheepish laughter. 'It wasn't on a gadget. You had to go out there and ask out girls and have some game.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. As showrunner Morgan puts it, Holloway constantly 'borrows from himself' on screen. Referencing Steve McQueen in 'Bullitt' and Walter Matthau in 'The Bad News Bears,' Morgan says she and Abrams leaned into Holloway's inherent appeal when writing Jim. 'We thought about characters that you want to spend a lot of time with,' Morgan says. 'Josh just brings that warmth.' Holloway acknowledges that every character he plays is a color from his kaleidoscopic persona. Raised in rural Georgia, he tried a slew of professions – construction, restaurateuring and modeling, among them – before giving acting a whirl. When he took a class from Corey Allen and the 'Rebel Without a Cause' actor preached the perks of channeling such experiences on screen, Holloway lit up. 'I'd just had a lot of life experience already to draw on,' he says. 'That's what it was: I want to do everything, so I'm an actor.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Although 'Lost's' Sawyer was deemed one of the show's least popular characters in audience testing, Cuse says the actor's deep-seated pathos led the writers to reimagine him as a reluctant hero. By the time the mystery-box series concluded in 2010, Sawyer was a fan favourite. 'That was a really satisfying arc,' Cuse says, 'that was only made possible because of what Josh had inside.' Riding the wave of 'Lost's' success, Holloway turned down a slew of network TV procedurals in hopes that a movie career would take off. After booking minor roles in the 2011 blockbuster 'Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,' the 2013 thriller 'Paranoia' and the 2014 action flick 'Sabotage,' Holloway grew impatient with big-budget film shoots and longed for television's expediency. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'I always had two or three jobs at once since I was 11 years old,' Holloway says. 'I did a couple of movies, and I was so bored because you'd sit around so long. On TV, you just go to your trailer to change and that is it – you're back on set, and they're busting your butt.' That's not to say Holloway is done with film: He recently shot supporting roles in the musical 'Reimagined' and the crime drama 'He Bled Neon' and will topline an indie adaptation of the Louis L'Amour novel 'Flint' that shoots this summer. But after spending a decade between movie gigs, Holloway acknowledges that he's built more for the TV grind than the big-screen machine. After biding his time before 'Duster,' Holloway is relishing one more spin in the driver's seat. 'I'm a workhorse,' he says with a shrug. 'That's my character.' Toronto & GTA Sunshine Girls Tennis Sunshine Girls NFL
Washington Post
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Lost for seven years, Josh Holloway is back in the driver's seat
Josh Holloway was stranded in a Hollywood wasteland five years ago when the phone rang. It was J.J. Abrams, and he was offering a route out of the figurative desert — by way of a literal one. The third and final season of the Holloway-starring series 'Colony' had aired more than a year earlier. Freshly 50, Holloway accepted that the dystopian drama was probably his last leading-man gig. If the offer came to play, say, a leading man's father? He'd be there. But that wasn't happening, either.
CNET
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
'Duster': When to Watch Episode 3 of the Retro Grindhouse Series
Duster is an action-filled drama set in the early '70s in Arizona. In it, Jim Ellis (played by Josh Holloway), a rough-and-tumble driver for a growing crime syndicate, unexpectedly partners up with a tenacious FBI newbie named Nina (Rachel Hilson) -- a woman dead-set on bringing said crime family to justice. J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan created this high-octane thrill ride, which has become the perfect vehicle for Holloway to settle into. After all, who doesn't want to see Lost's Sawyer skirt the law and race around in a sweet car? Rounding out the cast are Keith David (as crime boss Ezra Saxton), Sydney Elisabeth (as Genesis), Greg Grunberg (as FBI boss Abbott), Camille Guaty (as Jim's ex, Izzy), Asivak Koostachin (as Awan), Adriana Aluna Martinez (as Luna) and Benjamin Charles Watson (as Royce). Scroll on to find out more details about streaming Duster and information about how using a VPN may help. Read more: Max Streaming Service Review: Loads of Content, but You Have to Make It Fit You Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson star as Jim and Nina in Duster on Max. Ursula Coyote/Max Where and when you can watch 'Duster' The third episode of Duster will drop on Thursday, May 29, at 9 p.m. ET/ 6 p.m. PT on Max. The eight-episode season will air new episodes weekly until the finale, which will drop on Thursday, July 3. James Martin/CNET Max The home of Duster If you want to get behind the wheel of Duster, the key you'll need is a subscription to Max. You can choose the ads tier, which costs $10 per month, or the ad-free option, which is $17 per month. Want to watch in 4K? The Ultimate plan offers that feature and costs $21 per month. There's also the Hulu, Disney Plus and Max megabundle. The ad-based bundle comes with a $17 monthly price tag, while the ad-free version is $30 a month. See at Max How to watch 'Duster' with a VPN If you're traveling abroad and want to keep up with your favorite shows while away from home, a VPN can help enhance your privacy and security when streaming. It encrypts your traffic and prevents your internet service provider from throttling your speeds and can also be helpful when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks while traveling, adding an extra layer of protection for your devices and logins. VPNs are legal in many countries, including the US and Canada, and can be used for legitimate purposes such as improving online privacy and security. However, some streaming services may have policies restricting VPN use to access region-specific content. If you're considering a VPN for streaming, check the platform's terms of service to ensure compliance. If you choose to use a VPN, follow the provider's installation instructions, ensuring you're connected securely and in compliance with applicable laws and service agreements. Some streaming platforms may block access when a VPN is detected so verifying if your streaming subscription allows VPN use is crucial.
Forbes
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Duster' Is A Muscle Car Crime Drama With An Identity Crisis
Duster On paper, HBO's new muscle car crime drama Duster has all the makings of a great new TV series. Cool cars, great 70s fashion, fight scenes and a killer soundtrack. The only thing missing so far is a decent script. Set in Phoenix, Arizona in 1972, the series follows getaway driver Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway) and FBI rookie Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson) as they set out to take down crime boss Ezra Saxton (Keith David). The really frustrating thing about Duster is that it gets so close and yet fails at almost every screeching turn. The show never seems entirely sure of itself or what it's trying to be. Is it a hammy tribute to the muscle car capers of the era or a serious crime drama about characters and their families and tragic pasts? Is it trying to be the next Smokey and the Bandit – or a lecture on racism in the 1970s Federal Bureau of Investigation? Is Jim Ellis a live-fast, die-young scoundrel or just a mostly pretty nice guy with a heart of gold who just happens to be working for the mob? And would any rookie FBI agent get away with the kind of shenanigans and insubordination Agent Hayes is pulling from day one or is everyone just treating her badly because she's a black woman? Is this a show we're supposed to take seriously (as seriously as it apparently takes itself) or just meant to be escapist fun? Tonally, Duster is all over the map. When it's having fun, the series shines. The car chases are great. There's one dust-up in a bowling alley that's particularly memorable. A heist at the Palm Springs house of Elvis Presley was another highlight, though they could have done so much more with it. But for each of these great bits of good old-fashioned entertainment, the show manages to bog itself down with awkward preachiness and never quite matches its cool sense of style with particularly creative filmmaking or memorable cinematography. Duster A big problem from the jump is Nina Hayes, who serves as Duster's Strong Female Black Woman trope rather than a fully realized character. Hilson is charming and does a solid job here, but she's badly served by the script. Hayes arrives at the Phoenix office of the FBI to face immediate, in-your-face racism from the white male agents. She comes in guns blazing and they shoot her right down. None of the actual, far more nefarious and subtle racism of a 1970s FBI office makes it to the screen and we never actually see Nina struggle with it beyond the odd speedbump or two – setbacks she easily overcomes. Of course, Nina has zero sense of self-preservation – not that she needs any. Apparently the really terrible racism of the 1970s was all just bluster. Nina is just cool enough and just tough enough and just rogue-agent enough that her detractors, no matter how hard they try, can't make anything stick. If the show actually knew what it was trying to be, maybe this wouldn't matter. Have a bozo FBI racist white dude and a super cool black female agent and play it for laughs. Dial everything way up. But as it stands, if the point of all this is to show the audience how hard it was for a black woman in the 1970s FBI, Duster is doing a terrible job. We're told that racism back then was cartoonishly bad, but actually overcoming it was super easy, barely an inconvenience. Duster Jim, meanwhile, is all wrong despite a solid performance from Holloway. They needed to double down on the fact that he's a criminal. Make him more reckless, more devil-may-care, and more a product of his time. As it stands, it's kind of hard to understand why he's even in this life. He's a bad boy without any grit. A lady's man without the chauvinism. Give him some texture for goodness sake (and maybe a little scruff on that clean-shaven face while you're at it). Like Hayes, he's too instantly competent at everything. Duster could have gone one of two different directions. It could have been a dark, serious crime drama set in the 1970s with important themes about racism and sexism or it could have been a zany muscle car power fantasy using the 70s as a cool backdrop. Settling on a half-baked version of both leaves it in an awkward, tonally messy middle-ground that misses the mark more often than not. As one reader noted, it's like an Elmore Leonard novel without the snappy dialogue or Tarantino with the edges sanded down. Jackie Brown this is not. All that being said, after two episodes I'm definitely having fun. I like Jim and Nina despite their shallow characterization, even if they've leaned too hard into girlboss tropes for Nina and played Jim way too straight. Keith David is as good as ever as Saxton, and the supporting cast is mostly on-point. I'm okay with the tropey humor and the action is entertaining. Perhaps most importantly, I'm looking forward to the next episode in spite of all my complaints. Maybe Duster will find its feet – or wheels, as the case may be – as the season continues.
USA Today
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Josh Holloway gets 'Yellowstone' snakebite criticism but says it was the 'best job ever'
Josh Holloway gets 'Yellowstone' snakebite criticism but says it was the 'best job ever' Show Caption Hide Caption Josh Holloway loved working on new series 'Duster.' Here's why 'Lost' star Josh Holloway reveals why he wanted to reunite with creator J.J. Abrams on new series 'Duster.' Josh Holloway's slick antagonist Roarke Morris endured one of the great "Yellowstone" deaths in 2021's Season 4 premiere, ending two seasons of playing a thorn in the side of the Dutton family. Dutton-family enforcer Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser) opened a cooler with an agitated rattlesnake onto the unsuspecting Roarke, who was bitten in the face and dramatically died from the venom. While it's hard to beat the spectacle, snakebite purists have griped that death came too quickly for Roarke. "I agree," Holloway, who stars as a getaway driver in the 1970s-tastic HBO series "Duster," tells USA TODAY. The actor flagged the too-quick venom death to his friend and "Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan before shooting. "We talked about that, Taylor and I," says Holloway, who suggested moving the face bite to the nearby major neck blood vessel. "I said, at least do the jugular, so we could at least say it was a direct shot. We could say that. And he was like, 'But it looks better here.' And I was like, 'But I wouldn't die that fast!'" The National Institute of Health reports "fatalities following rattlesnake bite are rare in the United States (and) usually occur some hours following the bite." But the face shot worked better onscreen, making it clear that the bite happened in the confusion, with two visible bloody marks on Roarke's chiseled cheeks. "We had this argument," Holloway smiles, admitting he lost the Sheridan debate and took his venom. "He said that it's drama, and it looks better this way. Do it. And it did come out great." Why is Josh Holloway's 'Yellowstone' death so great? It's a fantastic scene and a novel approach to TV dispatching. With real menace, the approaching Hauser sells the sneak snake attack to make it believable in a walk that should be on his Emmy sizzle reel. Holloway dies quickly, with foam coming out of his mouth. The best part might be that Rip walks away like Johnny Cash as Colter Wall's "Plain to See Plainsman" kicks in. Rip picks up the empty duct-taped hard-sided cooler with a shrug. He's probably still using that cooler in the "Yellowstone" spin-off. Why the 'Yellowstone' death scene was Josh Holloway's 'best job ever' Real rattlesnakes were professionally wrangled for the "Yellowstone" snake shots. "When they made that (rattling) noise, everyone was just like, 'Wow,'" says Holloway. A "so real" prop rattlesnake was utilized for the actual bite, which had to be shot in reverse. "For the close-up, you have to act backwards," says Holloway, who had to react to the bite and then pull the fake snake away from his face. "So it felt ridiculous. But then, when they flipped the sequence (in editing), it looked really great." Why shooting his death scene was Josh Holloway's 'best job ever' Overall, Holloway calls his "Yellowstone" death scene his "best job ever." Shot at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Holloway drove 15 hours to his wooded Montana cabin right next to the awe-inspiring Bitterroot River. He loved quarantine paradise for nine days while getting paid. "There were elk running by all the time. And I'm a fly fisherman, so I fly-fished on the Bitterroot River for nine days straight," says Holloway. "I would take one fish home every night and grill it. It was fantastic." It's the best kind of method acting because Roarke is fishing during the rattlesnake scene. "I had nine days, but all I had done was fish," says Holloway. "When I arrived at the set, I practiced dying in my car for like a half hour. And I shot for four hours before driving home." How to watch Josh Holloway in 'Duster' Holloway plays getaway driver Jim Ellis in the Max series "Duster," created by J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan. The action crime thriller (new episodes Thursdays at 9 ET/6 PT) stars Rachel Hilson as Nina Hayes, the FBI's first Black female agent, who recruits Ellis (Holloway) to bring down a powerful Arizona crime lord.
