Interview:
Richard Linklater,
co-writer/director
"Hit Man"
![]() Who is your hit man? This is the question posed in Hit Man, a black comedy that represents the latest collaboration between two high-profile Austinites, filmmaker Richard Linklater and Hollywood’s newest leading man, Glen Powell. Written by Linklater and Powell during the COVID lockdown, Hit Man is partly based on Skip Hollandsworth's 2001 Texas Monthly article about Gary Johnson, a community college professor who posed as a professional killer for hire during sting operations conducted by various Houston police departments. In Hit Man, Powell’s New Orleans psychology professor and police service technician Gary Johnson leaves behind his ho-hum existence when asked by his police handlers to go undercover as a hit man. The milquetoast Gary finds the process of getting into character so freeing and invigorating that he begins to lean into his day job to carefully craft personas for each of his prospective "clients." But Gary goes too far when he adopts the guise of the charismatic but empathetic Ron to meet with Maddy (Andor's Adria Arjona), who wants Ron to bump off her abusive husband. As Ron, Gary not just talks Maddy out of hiring him, ensuring she avoids being charged with solicitation of capital murder, but enters into an illicit romance with her that puts everything he holds dear in jeopardy. Hit Man also stars The Walking Dead’s Austin Amelio as disgraced undercover cop Jasper and Parks and Recreation’s Retta as Gary’s immediate superior Claudette. Hit Man opens May 24 in Austin theaters and will be available to stream June 7 on Netflix. On May 24, at the AFS Cinema, Richard Linklater will participate in a Q&A following the 6:15 p.m. showing and will introduce the 9:30 p.m. showing. Richard Linklater previously directed Glen Powell in 2006’s Fast Food Nation, 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!!, and 2022’s Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood. Linklater is currently working on Nouvelle Vague, a fact-based drama about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, and his adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along, which he is shooting over the span of 20 years with a cast that includes Beanie Feldstein, Ben Platt, and Paul Mescal. Aired: May 22, 2024. Web site: https://www.netflix.com/ https://www.austinfilm.org/screening/hit-man/ |
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