YAHOO SCREEN: Peter Weller, who was a friend and fan of Elmore Leonard, was so happy to come direct Justified after he helmed two of Sons of Anarchy's heaviest Season 7 episodes ("What a Piece of Work Is Man" and "Suits of Woe"). What kind of conversations did you have with him, and what did he bring to this episode?
Graham YostHe brought a lot to it. It’s hard for someone to come in this late in the game and really just fit in, and he fit in perfectly. He'd been interested in doing the show for a while, and [executive producer/director] Michael Dinner had been suggesting him. You know, we all hate actors who become really good directors — but not as much as I hate actors who become really good writers, like Dan Futterman and Danny Strong. Peter's a very smart guy, and he had great stories to tell of his wild times and people he's known. So he was really engaged and emailing me, "Hey, how about if I start this scene here with Boyd and Ava lying on the bar, because one time I found myself at three in the morning at a closed bar in New York and I was lying on the bar with a woman." And we said, "Okay, let's do that."
How great were those dailies to watch of Walton Goggins and Joelle Carter pretending to be drunk?
The interesting thing is, that whole scene was something Tim [Olyphant] actually suggested. He was working backwards: It would be fun if, when Raylan called Ava in for her come-to-Jesus scene with Vasquez and Rachel, she be hung over. I think in the original formulation, we were going to have Ava and Boyd start to make out at the end of [Episode] 2, when she says Pizza Portal, and so we backed off from that and decided to put that at the end of Episode [3], where it would have more impact. So we just liked the idea of them drinking all night, getting s--t-faced, telling stories, and just the details in that scene: When it looks like Ava's going to lose it, and Boyd says, "Are you going to pop?” — it's just a term I hadn't heard before for vomiting. They had a lot of fun doing it, I'll tell you that.
Source: Yahoo Screen
