Joe R. Lansdale is a force of nature. He’s written more than sixty novels, and six of his stories have made it to the big and small screens. When his gritty Western thriller The Thicket was published in 2013 by Mulholland Books, it was quickly snapped up by Hollywood. But production on the film took years to get off the ground, partly because of delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “I’m used to waiting,” Lansdale said during a recent video call from his Nacogdoches home in East Texas. “The first thing of mine to be made into a film took eight years.”
The wait ends Friday with the release of The Thicket in theaters. The movie, set in late-1800s Texas, stars Levon Hawke, son of Austin’s Ethan Hawke, as Jack Parker, a freshly orphaned teen who goes on a dangerous quest to save his sister, Lula (Esmé Creed-Miles), from a gang of bandits who kidnapped her. Reluctantly joining the naïve Parker is Reginald (Peter Dinklage), a world-weary bounty hunter, and his gravedigger partner, Eustace (Gbenga Akinnagbe). Both men know more than Jack about the dangers of the wilderness and the pitiless foe they will have to confront, Cut Throat Bill, played by a scowling, gravelly voiced Juliette Lewis.
Lansdale has written several screenplays, but, in an unusual twist for him, he wasn’t closely involved in The Thicket adaptation. That might’ve been a good thing because the film made a rather big change to his story: casting a woman as Cut Throat Bill, a male character in his book. Initially angered by the switch, Lansdale now wishes he’d come up with it. “I thought I was pretty damn clever,” he said. “But then I got out-clevered.”
The following has been edited for clarity and concision.
Texas Monthly: Did you visit the set of The Thicket?
Joe R. Lansdale: I normally do on the TV series [based on the novels in the Hap Collins and Leonard Pines mysteries series] and other films of mine that have been made. But I didn’t for this one. For one thing, the studios had it for several years. They would start gearing up to make it but then something would happen—COVID, or what have you. And then all of a sudden, they’re making it and they’re in Calgary, Canada, shooting the film. So, I just never had the chance. I’ve been in contact with the director.
TM: Is there anything you’re curious about?
JL: Of course. I’m waiting to see what they changed. [laughs] But my feelings are that it’s going to be very good. The trailer looks great. If it sells books, it’ll just get better in my estimation.
TM: Why do you think filmmakers are interested in your stories? Are you thinking cinematically as you’re writing your novels?
JL: I don’t think that I’m writing for a movie, but I think I write cinematically. That seems to be what people tell me, so I’ve come to believe it.
TM: Are there Western films that impacted you as a writer?
JL: Absolutely. Westerns are my favorite. I grew up on John Ford and Howard Hawks’s films. My favorite is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, hands down. After that, I think it may be the remake of True Grit. I love that film beyond reason, because I love that book beyond reason.
TM: True Grit came to mind while reading The Thicket and watching the film. Your main character is a young person heading into extreme danger in pursuit of an outlaw hiding out in the wilderness accompanied by grizzled, heartbroken, difficult, violent characters. As you were writing The Thicket, was True Grit or any other book or film informing a scene or character?
JL: Not consciously, but there’s no doubt that’s in the back of my mind. I definitely see The Searchers in it, both the book and film. True Grit, too. I could see a lot of my father’s stories about the West. He was born in 1909, when a lot of Western figures were still alive: Mark Twain, Annie Oakley, Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill. The way my father told stories is always in the back of my mind. He couldn’t read or write, and I think that may well have made him such a great storyteller.
TM: Does it give you any pleasure to find out that The Thicket’s protagonist is going to be played by fellow Texan Ethan Hawke’s son?
JL: Of course! I mean, us Texans have got to stick together. I’m excited about him. And there’s Peter Dinklage. People have said I must have been thinking about Peter Dinklage when I was writing Shorty (Reginald).
TM: That anticipated exactly the question I was going to ask. Your novel came out in 2013, right as Game of Thrones was becoming a cultural sensation.
JL: I did not write it with him in mind. But now I think, well, of course it should be him. He’s a great actor. But when they said Juliette Lewis was going to play Cut Throat Bill, I nearly lost it because Bill is a male in my book. But then I thought why didn’t I think of that? That’s perfect! And Juliette Lewis, my God.
TM: I was going to linger on this. That’s the most obvious change.
JL: That’s the only thing that I know of that I wished I had done. I thought I was pretty damn clever, but then I got out-clevered. [laughs] If anybody asked what I think is the greatest piece of casting, I would say that’s it. I saw some clips of her talking and she looks like her dad, the late Geoffrey Lewis. The voice that she’s adopted for this particular role is just perfect. I read somewhere that she was trying to recall her dad’s darker villainous roles. He kind of played the sort of outside characters.
TM: Her character is really layered and more nuanced than just being a villain. She’s almost a force of retribution against a world that had clearly demolished her.
JL: It’s a way of tying her and Shorty, the Dinklage character, together. One is small and the other is ugly. It shows this contrast and similarity between the two characters, which I thought was a good idea.
TM: What do you think of it being filmed in Canada?
JL: It’s the only beef I had. I thought, “Well, where’s the g—damn thicket?” It’s not just a patch of weeds or trees. It’s a huge geographical area. The film’s setting looks nothing like East Texas. But I think they played the thicket more as a metaphorical idea. And there’s nothing wrong with that either. It’s a mythical version. When you think about John Ford, his Texas was in Utah.
TM: Is the thicket an actual place?
JL: Yes. The big thicket is one of the biggest forests in the U.S. At one point it was much, much bigger. It used to be almost impenetrable. It covered much of northeast Texas, but it went down south, too.
TM: Did people live there?
JL: Yes. Criminals went there to hide out. A lot of Native Americans went in there to hide from white people who kept encroaching on their lands. Frontiersmen ended up there because it was one of the last vestiges where they could just be left alone. You had to know what you were doing if you went into the thicket. You never knew who you were going to encounter. You might go in and you might not come out. It’s dark and somber and yet it’s beautiful and exhilarating at the same time. It’s very Southern and gothic.
TM: You’re also a screenwriter. How do you think about that pursuit in comparison to writing novels?
JL: The difference for me is that a book is my voice. I write in a certain style; I write in a certain way. I’m trying to put words in a row that have some magic about them. I don’t think of screenplay writing as an art. I think it’s a craft because they’re written to be evaluated by other people. They’re not normally the kind of reading material that most people want to snuggle up to at night before they go to sleep. You do the best you can, but as soon as you hand it off, the director’s got his or her interpretation. The actors have their interpretation. The cinematographer has theirs. For novels, you’re writing that story as you see it. It’s why I prefer books, but I love film, don’t get me wrong.
TM: What are you working on now?
JL: I have a new book out, Sugar on the Bones, which is the thirteenth book in my Hap and Leonard series. I also have coming out this fall a collection of Lovecraftian fiction called In the Mad Mountains. And I’m working on my memoir.
TM: Will the movie or this interview make it into the memoir?
JL: It depends on how far I take the memoir. I may not take it through my entire life. I’m certainly not going to write the end ahead of time.
