Over his long and terrific career, Timothy Olyphant has managed to lead three standout series—Justified, Deadwood, and Santa Clarita Diet—and a handful of not-so-terrific movies like Hitman, A Perfect Getaway, I Am Number Four, and The Crazies.
The important thing, though, is that television has given Olyphant the profile to do what he does best: show up, blow everyone away, and leave. Olyphant isn’t just a great supporting actor—he’s low-key one of the best scene stealers in the business. That talent goes all the way back to Go, where he played a weirdly sexy drug dealer; or The Girl Next Door, as a sleazy, menacing adult film producer; or Live Free or Die Hard, where he somehow made a cyberterrorist charismatic. Olyphant excels at playing sleazy villains you kind of want to root for (see also Havoc, from earlier this year).
Stealing scenes is Olyphant’s superpower. No film or TV show has ever been worse off for sprinkling in a little Olyphant. He is the “more cowbell” of actors, and he proves it again and again. In comedy: as a sushi chef in The League; as himself, hilariously smug, in The Grinder; or playing “Raylan Olyphant” in The Good Place. Currently, he’s crushing it as the smug rival to Owen Wilson in Stick. Olyphant plays a fantastic douchebag antagonist because there’s always a part of you that kind of wants him to win.
The Mandalorian needed some extra spice? They brought in Olyphant. Then The Book of Boba Fett was like, “Can we get more Olyphant?” and brought him back—twice. He was also, weirdly, like the 10th lead in Daisy Jones & The Six, but whenever that series began to flag, they’d just toss in some Olyphant, and suddenly things perked up.
Remember This Is Where I Leave You? That cast was stacked—Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Kathryn Hahn, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Connie Britton, Corey Stoll. And yet, it was that little dash of Olyphant that sealed it.
You don’t even have to see his face. I loved #1 Happy Family USA, but the funniest part? Olyphant as a lonely FBI agent. He’s also popped up in Rick & Morty, The Simpsons, American Dad, and even Bubble Guppies—whatever that is!
You know what else he was great in, despite the movie itself being kinda mid? Catch and Release. He played the best friend of Jennifer Garner’s dead fiancé, and he and Garner had some unexpectedly electric chemistry (also, weirdly, it’s Kevin Smith’s best acting performance). That chemistry’s coming back in The Five-Star Weekend, an adaptation of another Elin Hilderbrand novel. In it, Garner plays a woman whose husband dies unexpectedly, and who invites four of her closest friends from different phases of life to a weekend getaway. But there’s a twist: her high school boyfriend shows up. He’s played by—you guessed it—Timothy Olyphant.
It’s perfect: a known scene-stealer with proven chemistry opposite the lead. The cast also includes Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall, Gemma Chan, and D’Arcy Carden. That’s a hell of a lineup. And Olyphant? He’s the perfect cowbell.
