Natalie Zea as Winona Hawkins on FX's Justified (photo by Robert Zukerman)
Natalie Zea as Winona Hawkins in FX's Justified (photo by Prashant Gupta)
I’m still fuzzy on exactly why you and Raylan’s characters divorced? Could you talk about that and how you view it, and also the dynamic with your character and Ava Crowder, Joelle Carter’s character, if you could elaborate and tell us where this is going?
Natalie Zea: Well, I love that you’re enjoying my character. I don’t know about how much we’re going to explore in terms of the divorce and why the divorce happens. But what I do know is from the book, Winona is left behind in Kentucky, while Raylan goes to Florida to set up sort of a new life for them and she is to sell the house and is selling the house. She ends up getting friendly with their realtor and ultimately leaving Raylan for said realtor, but I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. Those were just the sort of logistical terms and we’re not going to really talk all that much about it in this season. I think that that’s for, God willing, season two, I think we’re going to get much deeper into what really happened.
In terms of Ava and Winona, I’m really happy with how they’ve introduced the two of these characters to each other. It’s not catty, it’s certainly not adversarial on the surface. And I think that we only share a few scenes, well, three scenes, one of the scenes she’s passed out, so we really only exchange words in two of those scenes. But it’s mostly all about what’s not being said, what’s being said under the surface. I like how sort of subtle that relationship is.
It must be really hard working with such an unattractive actor as Timothy Olyphant.
NZ: It’s awful. I’ve stated it publicly and I will say it again, it’s torture.
No, let me tell you about him, I have worked with some of the nicest people in Hollywood, he knocks all of them out of the water. When I first met him, well, see I’m about to gush, which is going to mean that I don’t like him, which is not true, but I will just say this, when I first met him, I held my hand out to shake his hand, he pushed my hand away, he got up, he took his hat off, and he gave me a hug, and he said, ‘I’m so glad you’re doing this, thank you so much for coming out.’ I’ve never worked with somebody who would upon first meeting do something like that.
How did you become involved with the show and why did you decide to take on the role?
NZ: I read the script over a year ago, that’s for the pilot, and I really liked it because it was so different from anything that I had been reading during that particular pilot season. And I told my manager I wanted to see if we could fight for this, because it’s always a struggle. It was a guest star. We all kind of figured it would turn into something else, but we didn’t know and we were willing to take the chance. Once we found out Tim was involved it seemed silly not to pursue it.
They actually didn’t want to see me. So we had to kind of make some phone calls and get creative, and finally I got an appointment to go in and read; and I read and it was an awful audition and I forgot about it. And about a month later, I got the call saying that they were going to fly me out to Pennsylvania and I was going to shoot the pilot. And then, once it got picked up and once the ball started rolling, they had me on as a regular, which was really great serendipity.
The pedigree of having FX and Elmore Leonard and Tim Olyphant, it just seemed so silly not to really try and pursue it, because it seemed to be a formula that you couldn’t beat.
Natalie Zea
This is your second show for FX, you did Hung on HBO, you did Dirty Sexy Money on ABC, do you have much interaction with the network?
NZ: I think it depends on the actor. For me the network is hugely important, because every network has a certain brand and a certain look and a certain feel. I think even more so than even in the past or maybe I’m just more aware of it now than I used to be. I decided after having done Dirty Sexy Money, don’t get me wrong, was an incredible experience and I’m so glad I did it, I felt like I wanted to do something somewhat different. I wanted to do something where the network wasn’t quite as involved in the creative process.
I did Hung and the network was not in any way a looming force on set. I never saw anybody from the network, I never got network notes, I never heard anybody talking about the network, and it was sort of this television utopia where the creative people are left alone. And I kind of feel that way about, no, I don’t kind of, I feel the same way about this show. I’ve never been aware of a network presence or aware of having to compromise or move things around or do things that are going to be more suitable for the network. I think that’s kind of how it should be.
A network is important for me. I think there are actors out there who would say that it’s not a factor, but that’s not the case with me.
What do you think sets Justified apart from some of the other television dramas that are out there?
NZ: I think Justified has a feeling that’s unlike any other show at least that I’ve seen. We in the television world, we’ve gotten into the habit of setting shows in New York and LA only. And there’s so much more going on in between those two coasts. I think it has this dark, yet mysterious, yet accessible feeling to it that I haven’t really seen on any other show.
I know that there are a lot of basic cable shows that shoot out in New Mexico that have maybe a similar feeling, but there’s something lush and mysterious and kind of weird about the world of Justified.
I also think the fact that the characters are all so specific, that it’s not just the typical television bad guy or…I don’t think there are a lot of arch types, which I certainly think is great. I think that everybody has more going on underneath the surface, even the guy who has one scene. So I think those two things combined make a really intriguing series.
Since Justified is based on work by Elmore Leonard which means that none of the characters are precisely what they seem to be, there’s always shading. What’s it like working on a show where that kind of circumstance exists?
NZ: Oh, gosh, I feel like I’ve been so spoiled with the past several years on projects that I’ve gotten to do and the characters that I’ve gotten to play. I get to add to all these insane multi-faceted weird, crazy, beautiful women that I’ve been able to portray, but the difference with her is that she’s so got her shit together, and yet she’s not. She’s not a stereotype and she’s not even necessarily an arch type, she has her shit together in spite of the fact that she’s a character.
They don’t write her like a woman, which I really appreciate. Because I feel like that happens a lot, especially with male writers where you’re writing a female character and you write like you think a female would talk. And it’s been pointed out that Winona and Raylan are sort of the same person on many levels, and I get to say dialogue that absolutely reflects that. That’s something that I haven’t had the chance to do before where there’s this masculine quality to who she is; yet she so embraces her femininity and her sort of soft femaleness.
What do you know about Winona that we don’t yet without giving away any major plot points?
NZ: That’s a good one. She’s fiercely…I don’t know if this is evident yet, but she will eat you alive if you get in her territory and if you step on her turf without having been invited she will eat you up and spit you out.
