Alison Stewart: This is All of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. A new neo-noir series called The Lowdown just wrapped its first season last night. It's the latest creation from writer and filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, and it stars Ethan Hawke as Lee Raybon, a disheveled, slightly manic, rare bookseller and a part-time journalist, or as he likes to call himself, a truthstorian.

Lee cares, like, really cares, about outing corruption in his local city of Tulsa and is convinced something is afoot within a powerful local family. Of course, this puts him at odds with just about everyone he runs into, even if they think he might be right. When a member of this family dies by an apparent suicide just as his brother is preparing a gubernatorial run, Lee Raybon knows for sure something is going on, and he might be right. When two knuckleheads working to try to please their boss, lock Lee Raybon in the trunk of a car.

Let's listen to a little bit of Ethan Hawke as Lee talking with his editor about being rescued by a private eye named Marty, who has a habit of popping up wherever Lee is, so Lee's a little suspicious.

Lee Raybon: Those are the guys. Those are the guys that kidnapped me.

Cyrus Arnold: You're not a kid, Lee.

Lee Raybon: No. Once they stole me, whatever. They're the guys who popped me in the trunk, I told you.

Cyrus Arnold: I gave you a gun. How does an adult with a gun get put in the trunk, and you don't know about the lever?

Lee Raybon: What lever?

Cyrus Arnold: There's a lever in all of them, man, in every trunk, you just pop; it opens right up.

Lee Raybon: They should have taught me that in school.

Cyrus Arnold: How'd you get out?

Lee Raybon: All right. This slick-looking Black dude, right, really finely dressed kind of guy who doesn't know the difference between Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.

Cyrus Arnold: I don't know the difference between Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.

Lee Raybon: Well, all right. He just appears out of nowhere. Boom, he saves me.

Cyrus Arnold: What in the magical Negro bullshit is that? You got to stop smoking dope, watching The Legend of Bagger Vance.

Lee Raybon: I know how it sounds, all right?

Alison Stewart: Shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Lowdown is action-packed and hilarious, and still finds time to include that slice of day-to-day life that made Reservation Dogs resonate, which makes sense because it comes from Harjo, creator of Reservation Dogs. In addition to Hawke, the series boasts Kyle MacLachlan, Keith David and Jeanne Trippelhorn, as well as a terrific performance by an eyepatch-wearing Killer Mike. All episodes of The Lowdown are available to watch on Hulu, including last night's finale. Sterlin Harjo joined me back in the studio in September, and I began by asking him if the character Lee Raybon was based on a real person.

Sterlin Harjo: Yes, he's inspired by a friend of mine. I wouldn't call it based because I don't want to pretend to tell someone's life story, but it was inspired by a friend of mine that I worked with at This Land Press, was a long-form magazine in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a media company. I used to make documentaries with a journalist. Well, he was a researcher, journalist, all around thorn in the side of the establishment. I made these videos called Tulsa Public Secrets, where I rode around in a van, and he talked about things that other people didn't know about Tulsa.

Alison Stewart: What was so inspirational about him to you?

Sterlin Harjo: He's just one of those people, I think, that was in deep pursuit of the truth at any cost. It was a point in my time in my life and my career where I was a filmmaker already, but I was struggling to make money and a living. His concern was never making money; it was always just fighting for the truth. Sometimes that went against the people with money. I just admired that.

At the time, I was co-parenting my daughter when she was 13. It was a time that I needed to see people fighting for things that was not monetary, it was about something bigger. It was a time that I needed to feel that as a filmmaker and go, "Okay, I can do this no matter what. As long as I keep doing what's truthful to me, someday the financial and everything else will catch up." It was an inspiration.

Alison Stewart: That's a hard lesson to learn when you first start out, though.

Sterlin Harjo: Yes. First start out, this was like 10 years, 12 years into it, and I was kind of looking at my watch, like, "How am I going to make a living?" My daughter, I'm really grateful on one hand that she got to watch me be a struggling artist because I think there's lessons in that. She ended up graduating from Pratt for creative writing a year--

Alison Stewart: Oh, congratulations.

Sterlin Harjo: Yes, thank you. She's a great writer. I'm grateful that she saw that. At the same time, we had crazy living situations. We were like, "Can we use your house while you're out of town?" We always made it fun. Looking back, I'm like, "Oh, man, that could have went south."

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Lee, the character, he's just got a lot going on. He knows art, but he doesn't have any money. His ex-wife loves him, but only so far she cares about what happens to him. What is it about this character that endears him to people, to everyone in his life, even if he might drive him a little crazy?

Sterlin Harjo: I think that they know that he's righteous. They know that his pursuits are noble. Sometimes he goes about them in crazy ways, and sometimes it could get him in trouble. They believe in him because he believes in the truth so much, I think. I think that they kind of have his back because of that. At the same time, it's fun to be around someone like that. I think that all of us are a little bit like that. I think that a human being is a very complex creature, and there are all these sides to us. I think that if Lee Raybon is honest with the people around him, and I think there's a level of respect that he gains because of that.

Alison Stewart: His id kind of goes. It just goes.

Sterlin Harjo: Right, right. Exactly.

Alison Stewart: Then he thinks about it afterward, and he's like, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that." [laughs]

Sterlin Harjo: Yes, exactly. He always knows when he's overstepped, but he doesn't ever stop himself from overstepping.

Alison Stewart: He does have a tenderness towards his daughter, his 13-year-old daughter. What does that relationship mean to him?

Sterlin Harjo: That's who the work is for. That's what he's doing it for. He needs to show her that there are things that are bigger than us that are noble to fight for. Especially today, I think that young people need to see that. The last thing that he would want is to be made a martyr out of it. That's the sort of tightrope you walk, because he still wants to inspire her, and I think, also help make the future better. In one's lifetime, you see things come and go, and you see darkness and light. I think we're all trying to get towards the light. Sometimes you have to take some hits doing that.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting because Lee is such a character. This could have been The Adventures of Lee, each one, each episode, but it isn't. There's more of a story there. When did the story come to you?

Sterlin Harjo: I don't know. Oklahoma, in general, is a really interesting place. At one point, it was called Indian Territory, and a lot of tribes were moved there. My tribes were marched on the Trail of Tears there by force. It has this diversity to it that not a lot of states in the middle of America or down south have. I think people would be very surprised by that. That, also, is a collision of culture and backgrounds. No one had ever explored that, or if they did, it wasn't right in my mind. I wanted to really just tell this story that took place, and kind of was a representative of the past and the present of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In all of my-- whether it's Reservation Dogs or this, I'm not interested in just one person. I was raised by such a large community, and I'm interested in all the characters that make that community up. Reservation Dogs was about a community as much as it was about kids. I think this is about a community in Tulsa as much as it's about Lee Raybon. I don't know. I've always just loved the genre of noir. I wanted to see if I could do it.

Alison Stewart: It's kind of cool because I thought it was Tim Blake Nelson, and he's from Tulsa. I knew in college. I thought it was interesting because his family is well-known in Tulsa as well. I wondered, if you guys had conversations, what those were like.

Sterlin Harjo: No, I literally offered him the part. He knew my work. Obviously, I knew his work. At one point, I think we were both on the board of the Circle Cinema in Tulsa. We had one conversation, and he agreed to do it. He was just excited to do it. The whole show is full of Oklahoma and Tulsa people, like Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tracy Letts.

Alison Stewart: That's awesome.

Sterlin Harjo: I don't know. It was exciting for me to get this kind of crew of people that knew what I was doing, but also had done their own thing and were very well-respected actors and bring them back home and have them play these parts.

Alison Stewart: I'm wondering, how did you catch the history of the place, the history of Tulsa? Even if you don't know that much about it, you watch the first couple episodes and you're like, "Oh, I kind of get this place a little bit."

Sterlin Harjo: I don't know. I think that in the work that people do in journalism, that's what you're dealing in. You are working with the past and you're working with the future, and you're working with the present. I think that that's always there. They're not separate. They are all influencing each other. That's why it's very important, I think, that we know the truth of our history and we don't hide the truth of our history to fill our own narrative or whatever, because it influences what happens in the present. You learn from your mistakes of history.

In somewhere like Tulsa, Oklahoma, for instance, the Tulsa race massacre, that was something that was very much swept under the rug and not talked about. I didn't know about it as a child. It took me to move to Tulsa and have people that were interested in history and talking about it. In the last 10 years and when I worked for This Land Press, we did stories on the race massacre. It was all about this idea of telling the truth about your past because you can heal from it. There is no healing without truth. You have to face it. You have to hold a mirror up to yourself so you can see your flaws. You also celebrate what's good as well.

That's something that, in my work, whether it's Reservation Dogs or The Lowdown, I try to do myself. I'm a believer in looking at things both from the light and the dark side and trying to Learn from them and heal from them. I think looking at something more holistically like that is just truer. It's more true to life and true to the past and everything.

Alison Stewart: That's something some politicians could learn.

Sterlin Harjo: Exactly. I think so, yes, if they're listening.

Alison Stewart: Do I still have a job? Yes, I do.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: My guest is Serlin Harjo. We're talking about his new show, The Lowdown, on FX. You're working with Ethan Hawke. He was great in Reservation Dogs. This show really wouldn't work without him.

Sterlin Harjo: Right.

Alison Stewart: First of all, what do you enjoy working with Ethan Hawke about? He's been around forever. He only gets better, in my opinion.

Sterlin Harjo: We have a real close bond, he and I. We're actually friends. We started working together as writers before. We were adapting this project of his. There was a graphic novel together. We were introduced by a mutual friend, Martin Sensmeier. I don't know, we just hit it off. I just fell in love with him because it's like he's so interested in art and music and film.

As soon as we met, it was like being in the middle of a conversation with an old friend. That conversation hasn't stopped with us, whether we're texting each other or running into each other on press or at a screening or just hanging out. We just keep continuing this conversation that feels like we're always catching up. It usually revolves around art, literature, music of some sort. We're sending each other tracks to listen to.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Sterlin Harjo: Whenever we're filming, it's just hanging out with one of your best friends. We have guitars on set. In between setups, we play songs and sing. Also with Tim Blake Nelson, he had his mandolin on set. I'd play songs with him, and we'd play songs and sing. With Ethan, I just respect his work so much. He cares about the craft, he cares about story, he cares about art in a way that I just identify with. I just wanted to be a part of that. I want to work with him. I think he's one of our great actors.

Alison Stewart: You know what I just realized with him and with Tim? It's interesting. They have their teeth. It's perfect.

Sterlin Harjo: Oh, yes, they do. Yes, exactly. You mean like--

Alison Stewart: Their teeth-teeth. They don't have veneers. [laughs]

Sterlin Harjo: No, exactly. It's so refreshing, right?

Alison Stewart: It's like a real face.

Sterlin Harjo: Yes, it's great. It's like, "Wow, that's a real human being."

Alison Stewart: Real human being. Killer Mike has a really fun role in this.

Sterlin Harjo: I'm so proud of him.

Alison Stewart: Tell me why you're proud of him.

Sterlin Harjo: I'm just proud of him. He came on set, and he was nervous, but he took it very seriously.

Alison Stewart: Oh, interesting.

Sterlin Harjo: I mean, he was on his script, and he would get really down on himself. The way that I work is that once we start filming, the script goes out the window, and we know what it's about, and we can play, and it's kind of like jazz. With Mike, he was really making sure he got every line, which I respected.

Alison Stewart: That's really sweet.

Sterlin Harjo: I respected that. He was like, "Look, there's a lot of rappers that act and they look stupid. I just don't want to look stupid." I was like, "I will never let you look stupid." What was great at the premiere the other day, he gave me a big hug, and he was like, "Man, thanks for not letting me look stupid.'

[laughter]

Sterlin Harjo: He's very proud of what he did, and so am I. He's so good. For someone that's never really done it before, you want to come back and see more of him. Like, you can't wait to get more of the character Cyrus. He's great in it.

Alison Stewart: He's got one of the lines that makes me laugh. "Well-meaning white men, the saddest of the bunch." What does that mean?

Sterlin Harjo: "A white man that cares, saddest of the bunch," is the line. I think that because of the bravery of a good white man will get you in trouble, get themselves hurt. It's just that even in the scary movies, they're the first through the door. "Let's see what's happening. We're going to figure this out. I'm going to handle the situation." They always get hurt. I just think that he's recognizing that. You're just like, "Man, I love you, but damn it, you're going to get us all hurt."

Alison Stewart: [laughs] A recent article that was about you and about your work, it said that you mentioned having the art of the hang with the Reservation Dogs. It's sort of like a genre unto itself. First of all, what do you like about that genre, the art of the hang?

Sterlin Harjo: I just think that there's so much that we don't pay attention to in our lives. There's so much that you can learn from people when they're not kicking in a door or in the middle of some monologue. It's like, what is your behavior when people aren't looking? I think that that is the hang. That's when you're just there being. I love that. I love paying attention to that.

Jim Jarmusch, the filmmaker, I'm going to not get this quote right at all, but he said something like a lot of films are interested in when you get on a bus and where you end up, and that's what they show. He's like, "I'm more interested on waiting on the bus. What are the characters doing when they're waiting on the bus?" I think that it's just something that I'm interested in, too. I grew up in a really rural area, small town, and life is the hang there. It's like there's nothing to do sometimes, and you have to tell stories and you have to make art and you have to invent your fun. I grew up like that.

I don't know, watching, let's say, Linklater's films. Dazed and Confused is the ultimate hang. I could just watch that. I could have it going in the background all the time. That felt very much like my life, growing up at Holdenville, Oklahoma. I'm just attracted to that. How do characters respond? How do characters act when someone's not watching?

Alison Stewart: The Lowdown is different, though, because there's so much action happening in The Lowdown. What was it like to switch gears? Is there a hang in The Lowdown?

Sterlin Harjo: Yes, I think there's a hang. You have the neighborhood, where he goes back to all the time. Obviously, it's more of a genre piece. It's in the genre of noir, film noir or neo-noir, whatever you want to call it. There is a hang to it. The trick with this one was more of a balance of those moments of breathing happen less frequently than Reservation Dogs, but they're there.

I don't know, I think it keeps it grounded in the community, and it makes you feel the specifics of Tulsa and being with those characters and what it's like. You can taste the coffee in the diner. I think that all of that, I just-- I don't know, it's just what I'm interested in as a filmmaker.

Alison Stewart: I like the graphic design. It's like sort of '70s, the way it comes through. What's that about?

Sterlin Harjo: I have to acknowledge all of the influences, and a lot of those are from the '70s or influenced by those from the '70s, like The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman's film. That is another film I could just put on the background all day. I feel like I wanted to be inside of that movie, and I want to hang. Especially with genre and something that's been established, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I am acknowledging my influences and then trying to do something new with it. If I do that, then I feel like I succeed.

Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with The Lowdown creator Sterlin Harjo, who is also the man behind the Peabody Award-winning series Reservation Dogs. You can catch all episodes of the series streaming now on Hulu.

Coming up tomorrow, Oscar winning actor Ariana DeBose. She's starring in the revival of the musical The Baker's Wife. A very important issue on tomorrow's show, do you wait until Thanksgiving to put up your winter holiday decorations or do you drag them out before Halloween? Coming up, it's time for another episode of our Small Stakes, Big Opinions debate series. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you, and I will meet you back here next time.