With FX’s new series “Fargo,” a like-minded offspring of filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 masterpiece of heavy weather, heavier murder and hilariously mannered Midwestern accents, writer/showrunner Noah Hawley had to accept that the title was more state of mind than a setting.
“There’s something about the word, it evokes in people a sort of border of the wilderness,” says Hawley, who sold FX on not doing a remake but a new, self-enclosed 10-episode story that had a similar vibe, but with new characters converging in a Minnesota burg named Bemidji.
“Joel and Ethan have described the region as Siberia with family restaurants, and they’ve also discussed that polite societies are often the most violent because people don’t bend, they just break,” he says. “That’s the version of Minnesota I’m trying to stick to.”
If certain elements remind viewers of the movie — Martin Freeman’s beleaguered husband (a la William H. Macy), Billy Bob Thornton’s ice-cold killer (a la Peter Stormare) and Allison Tolman’s smart cop (a la Frances McDormand’s iconic Marge Gunderson) — those similarities fade as the pilot forges its own bloody territory and small-town character humor. For one thing, says Hawley, making a 10-hour versus a two-hour movie necessitated tamping down some things while bolstering others.
For one thing, the “ya”-speak, a prominent feature of the movie, isn’t so pervasive in the series.
“The accent is there, but we underplay it. The movie takes place in ’87, and ours takes place in 2006, and the whole world is becoming southern California, accentwise,” Hawley says. “So maybe older characters would have a stronger accent, younger characters less of one.”
The tonal balance also shifted. “The movie is actually more comic than people remember,” says Hawley. “If I did that tone specifically, people would think I got it wrong. We needed the gravity and the drama to drive it. I decided we were going to make ‘No Country For Old Fargo.’”
If anything, the series “Fargo” — which satisfied the Coens themselves enough that they signed on as executive producers (“They said very nice things to me about [the script], which was a good day,” says Hawley) — doubles down on the Coens’ trademark theme of where civility and its opposite intersect.
The first image that came to Hawley’s mind, in fact, when FX asked him to essentially make a Coen brothers movie for them, was of two men in an emergency room, a scene which now anchors the first episode. When meek, bullied insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Freeman) meets Lorne Malvo (Thornton), a drifter sporting bangs and an expensive-looking coat, Lester certainly doesn’t expect his tale of woe to inspire a violent chain of events. Malvo is no ordinary harbinger of doom, viewers soon find out, and Thornton practically giggles when talking about his part.
“Joy might be a weird word to use, but he’s a joy to play,” says Thornton. “I just love the fact that Malvo toys with people. That’s his recreation, like him playing cards. Messing with people he smells weakness in is his only social life.”
As the only major cast member to act for the Coens (in “The Man Who Wasn’t There”), Thornton is impressed with Hawley’s writing. “He managed to capture the tone of the Coen brothers without imitating them and that’s really tricky. He walked a tightrope, and got to the other side.”
If Thornton’s prankish devil Malvo is the series’ darkest streak, newcomer Allison Tolman’s ambitious deputy Molly Solverson is its heroine in the making, perhaps a future Marge Gunderson-type.
“I just love the fact that Malvo toys with people. That’s his recreation, like him playing cards. Messing with people he smells weakness in is his only social life.”
“What makes Molly unique is that she’s constantly trying to fight to get to a position where people will listen to her, because she’s right and they’re wrong,” says Tolman of her character’s arc in investigating some gruesome crimes. “The difference is that Marge was already on top. She was the chief, and she was respected. What makes Molly Molly is her fighting for that.”
Hawley calls Tolman, a Texas native transplanted to Chicago whose resume consisted of regional theater, a real find.
“Picture a casting room in Burbank, just hundreds of ingénues in parkas when it’s 90 degrees out, pretending to be cold,” he says. “Then this tape came in, and there was Allison. She got all the humor, and felt like a real person.”
There’s been no need for actors to fake chilliness on set, however, since “Fargo” shoots in Calgary — beautiful and extremely cold Calgary.
“When it’s minus 30, the propane turns to liquid, and the orange road cones shatter, you think, ‘What am I doing here?’” says Hawley. “But I’m making a show called ‘Fargo,’ so I have nobody to blame but myself.”