50 Fun Facts About Timothy Olyphant

In Justified's opening scene, Raylan Givens shoots a gangster across a restaurant table in which city?

Miami. He had given the man 24 hours to leave town, and although the shooting is ruled justified, it gets him sent back to the home state he had been glad to leave.

Which sheriff did Olyphant play in HBO's Deadwood?

Seth Bullock. The real Bullock came to Deadwood in 1876 to sell hardware, was made sheriff by the territory's governor a year later, and is said to have tamed the camp without killing anyone.

On which network did Justified air?

FX. He had already impressed the channel in a guest role on another of its dramas, and on Justified he became a co-executive producer as well as the star.

Which novelist created Olyphant's Justified character?

Elmore Leonard. He introduced the marshal in the 1993 novel Pronto, then liked the series so much that the show inspired his last novel, Raylan, in 2012.

In which state was Olyphant born?

Hawaii. He was born in Honolulu but grew up from the age of two in Modesto, California, the farm town George Lucas put on screen in American Graffiti.

Olyphant is a descendant of which famous American family?

Vanderbilt. His fourth great-grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt started out at 16 running a ferry across New York Harbor and ended up one of the richest Americans in history.

In which sport was Olyphant a national finalist in 1986?

Swimming. He had trained since he was six, and reaching the 200 individual medley final at the 1986 nationals won him a place on one of the country's top college teams.

Which West Coast university recruited Olyphant for his sporting talent?

USC. He arrived expecting to study architecture, was told it would never fit around training, and discovered the fine arts department instead.

In which 2010 horror remake did Olyphant play a small-town sheriff caught inside a military quarantine?

The Crazies. His Sheriff Dutten works out that the town's water is turning neighbours into killers and shuts off the supply himself after the mayor refuses.

In which anthology crime series did Olyphant play 'Deafy', a Mormon U.S. marshal, in 2020?

Fargo. In the fourth season, set in Kansas City in 1950, his marshal Dick 'Deafy' Wickware rides into a gang war while hunting a pair of fugitive bank robbers.

In Daisy Jones & the Six, what is Olyphant's character Rod Reyes?

The band's tour manager. It is Rod who first tells the unknown Pittsburgh group to move to Los Angeles, the advice that sets the whole story in motion.

Olyphant originated a one-man show based on which writer's essay about being a Macy's elf?

David Sedaris. Olyphant was the first actor to play the elf when Joe Mantello turned the essay into a one-man play in 1996, and it has been a seasonal staple of American theatres ever since.

Which actor played saloon keeper Al Swearengen opposite Olyphant's sheriff in Deadwood?

Ian McShane. His Swearengen spends the series locking horns with the sheriff, and the character was real: the historical Al Swearengen ran the Gem, the camp's most notorious brothel.

In which 1996 film did Olyphant make his feature debut?

The First Wives Club. He plays a hot young director who offers Goldie Hawn's fading star a part in his film: not the leading lady she expects, but the heroine's ageing mother.

In which 1997 horror sequel did Olyphant play a film student revealed as a killer?

Scream 2. He played Mickey, and later called the part a gift, because at that point he had virtually nothing on his résumé and suspects some of what was there had been made up.

Before he was famous, Olyphant played a twenty-something fling in the first season of which HBO series?

Sex and the City. In the fourth episode, 'Valley of the Twenty-Something Guys', his Sam charms Carrie on a night out and looks a good deal less glamorous in the light of day.

In which 1999 cult comedy, set around Christmas, did Olyphant play a drug dealer?

Go. His dealer Todd holds a customer's friend as collateral until she pays, and the film's producer was impressed enough to offer him his pick of parts in his next project.

Olyphant was replaced by Aidan Quinn in which 1998 fantasy film?

Practical Magic. Variety announced him in the cast alongside Nicole Kidman as rehearsals were about to begin, yet by the time the film opened the part belonged to Quinn.

Which famous role did Olyphant turn down, later taken by Vin Diesel?

Dominic Toretto. The studio promised to green-light the film if he signed; he passed, later joking that he assumed nobody would want to watch such a thing eight or nine times.

In which car-themed blockbuster of 2000 did Olyphant play a detective on the thieves' trail?

Gone in 60 Seconds. His Detective Drycoff spends the film a step behind a crew that has to steal 50 cars against the clock, saving a 1967 Shelby Mustang nicknamed Eleanor for last.

In which 2004 teen comedy did Olyphant play Kelly, a menacing adult-film producer?

The Girl Next Door. He nearly skipped the audition, feeling he had played the type before, until his manager pointed out that hardly anyone had seen those films.

Which Stephen King adaptation featured Olyphant as one of four friends attacked by aliens?

Dreamcatcher. He is Pete, one of four friends who gained telepathic powers as boys after rescuing another child, and whose yearly hunting trip in Maine turns into an alien invasion.

Who created Deadwood, the HBO western in which Olyphant played the town's sheriff?

David Milch. He had pitched HBO a drama set in ancient Rome, and only turned it into a western about a gold-rush camp because the channel already had Rome in the works.

Which villain did Olyphant play in Live Free or Die Hard?

Thomas Gabriel. The cyber-terrorist stages a 'fire sale', an attack meant to shut down America's computer networks; Olyphant took the part, he admits, for purely financial reasons after Deadwood was cancelled.

Which video game assassin did Olyphant play in 2007 after Vin Diesel dropped out?

Agent 47. He shaved his head for the part and says he could have done without it; the film took about $100 million worldwide on reviews that were, by and large, awful.

In which 2009 thriller did Olyphant play a possible serial killer stalking holidaymakers?

It earned him a Toronto Film Critics Association nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

In which legal thriller did Olyphant spend a season as the heroine's morally ambiguous love interest?

Damages. He appeared in 11 episodes opposite Rose Byrne and Glenn Close in 2009, and the goodwill he built with the channel led straight to the offer of Justified.

What was Justified's working title when Olyphant was first sent the pilot script?

Lawman. The final title comes from the opening shooting, which Raylan keeps insisting was justified because the other man pulled his gun first.

In which state is Justified set?

Kentucky. The show's Harlan County is real coal country, yet the pilot was filmed in Pennsylvania and nearly every later episode in California.

With which Justified character did Raylan dig coal as a teenager?

Boyd Crowder. He was written to die in the pilot, but test audiences liked Walton Goggins so much that the producers kept him, and he became the marshal's great adversary.

In 2011, when Olyphant was Emmy-nominated for Justified, which co-star won an Emmy for the show?

Margo Martindale. She won as the backwoods matriarch Mags Bennett, while Olyphant, nominated as lead actor that night, lost to Kyle Chandler of Friday Night Lights.

Which prestigious broadcasting honour did the first season of Justified win?

Peabody Award. The judges praised the way the series keeps asking its own title's question, when is this kind of violence justified, and its moments of superbly subtle humour.

Who wrote the 2010 Office episode that introduced Olyphant as a rival salesman?

Mindy Kaling. Her episode, 'The Sting', brought him in as the salesman who keeps beating the Scranton office, and three years later he played a middle-aged skateboarder on her own show.

What character did Olyphant voice in the animated film Rango?

The Spirit of the West. He appears to the lost chameleon in the desert as an ageing gunslinger and sends him back to face the town: "No man can walk out on his own story."

In which 2025 Netflix film did Olyphant play a narcotics detective?

Havoc. His Vincent leads a squad of narcotics detectives hunting thieves who have made off with washing machines that hide a shipment of cocaine.

In which Fox comedy did Olyphant play a fictionalised version of himself?

The Grinder. His 'Timothy Olyphant' becomes the hero's nemesis and takes over his old part in a spin-off of the show within the show, a turn that won him a Critics' Choice award.

Who co-starred with Olyphant in the Netflix horror-comedy Santa Clarita Diet?

Drew Barrymore. They play married estate agents whose suburban routine collapses when she becomes a zombie with a taste for human flesh; Netflix cancelled it after three seasons.

Which real star of the TV western Lancer did Olyphant play in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?

James Stacy. The film restages the making of a Lancer episode, with Leonardo DiCaprio's fading actor hired as that week's villain opposite Olyphant's Stacy.

Which Star Wars character did Olyphant play in The Mandalorian?

Cobb Vanth. The marshal of a small desert town wears Boba Fett's old armour, bought from Jawa scavengers, and that armour is what brings the Mandalorian to his door.

What was the 2023 miniseries that brought Olyphant's marshal back called?

Justified: City Primeval. It moves the marshal to Detroit, borrowing the plot of a crime novel written without him, and Olyphant's own daughter Vivian plays his character's teenage daughter.

In Alien: Earth, what kind of being is Olyphant's character Kirsh?

A synthetic. Kirsh is wholly artificial, and his job is to train the first hybrids: synthetic bodies that carry the consciousness of human children.

Olyphant played himself in a cameo parodying his Justified marshal on which NBC comedy?

The Good Place. In the final season the all-knowing Janet conjures him up, dressed as his Justified marshal, for the benefit of the afterlife's Judge.

In which 2011 sci-fi film did Olyphant play Henri, the guardian of a teenage alien in hiding?

I Am Number Four. Henri is sworn to protect the boy, one of nine children sent to Earth when invaders destroyed their home planet and now hunted down one at a time.

Which film director gave the weather on the Los Angeles radio show where Olyphant read the sports?

David Lynch. By Olyphant's account he never forecast anything: he called in each morning to say what the weather was like outside at that moment, while Olyphant did the sports.

Which director cast Olyphant opposite Claire Danes in the 2023 kidnap thriller Full Circle?

Steven Soderbergh. He directed every episode of the six-part series, in which a kidnapping that goes wrong in New York uncovers long-held secrets linking people from very different worlds.

In the 2016 ensemble comedy Mother's Day, Olyphant played the ex-husband of which star's character?

Jennifer Aniston. Her character is still adjusting to the news that he has married a younger woman, in what turned out to be director Garry Marshall's last film.

Which Kenneth Lonergan comedy gave Olyphant the role of country singer Strings McCrane?

Hold On to Me Darling. Strings is a country superstar knocked sideways by his mother's death, and when the play was revived in 2024 the part passed to Adam Driver.

Who did Olyphant reunite with for the 2026 Peacock series The Five-Star Weekend?

Jennifer Garner. They had studied acting together in New York as unknowns and played a couple in the 2007 film Catch and Release, nearly twenty years before the series.

In which stop-motion Laika film did Olyphant voice a character in 2019?

Missing Link. He voices Willard Stenk, the bounty hunter sent to stop the explorer hero; the film won a Golden Globe yet took barely a quarter of its $100 million budget at the box office.

In which Oliver Stone film did Olyphant play a CIA officer stationed in Geneva?

Snowden. His officer sets up a target on a drink-driving charge to squeeze him for information, and the stunt is what pushes the young analyst to resign from the CIA.