AN INTERVIEW WITH LONG SHADOWS DIRECTOR WILLIAM SHOCKLEY
Long Shadows is the story of a boy, Marcus
Dollar, who sees his parents murdered. He grows up with no life experience
outside of an orphanage. When he’s old enough to leave, Marcus (Blaine Maye), is
determined to track down the killers. He falls for Dulce (Sarah Cortez), a
concert pianist tricked into a brothel. A retired gunfighter (Dermot Mulroney)
reluctantly takes Marcus under his wing. The local brothel is run by Vivian Villere
(Jacqueline Bisset), who is a master manipulator.
There are certain movies – think Psycho,
Chinatown, The Sixth Sense, A Beautiful Mind – which contain startling 3rd
act revelations: the sort of thing that, if someone spoiled it for you, you might
fling them down the nearest flight of stairs. So I won’t be saying anything
about what happens late in the new Western Long Shadows. It’s the first
feature directed by William Shockley, but he is not new to Westerns – he’s produced
4, cowritten 6. And you’ll know his face if you watched Dr. Quinn – Medicine
Woman: for 6 seasons and 120 episodes, he played the handsome, longhaired,
leering bartender Harry Lawson. On Friday,
November 7th, while most movies, Westerns included, go straight to
streaming, his Long Shadows premiered in 77 theaters in 50 cities across
the country. I told him that, for all of us yet-to-be first-time-directors, his
taking the helm after over 35 years of acting is inspiring.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Thanks. It's a
blessing and a privilege and an honor, to be honest with you. I watched a bunch
of directors throughout my career, and it was beautiful to get to be behind the
camera for a change. So inspiring. I just absolutely loved it,
HENRY PARKE: Did you grow up with Westerns as a kid? Did
you have favorites?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Maybe I watched Bonanza; That was
required. I watched Gunsmoke. I was taken by Clint Eastwood with Unforgiven.
And I grew up in Texas as a kid, so it's kind of like you listen to country
music, and you have a toy rifle that you play with <laugh>. But really, I
was fortunate enough to be on Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman. And that's
really where it sunk into my bones; six and a half years of my life on a
Western. And then I did a TV movie, playing General George Armstrong Custer, Stolen
Women, Captured Hearts that Lee Murray produced and Jerry London directed.
And reading up on Custer, and sinking my teeth into the West, on the research
level, and then co-writing a bunch of Westerns. So, I really immersed myself in
the historical side of it all. And I thought, my gosh, I wish I would've known
this much when I was a kid, like in high school or college, and really
appreciated the history of the American West. It was a brutal time, but there
was such beautiful simplicity with it. You know, your word was your bond. If
you messed with a man's wife or his cow, you got shot
HENRY PARKE: <laugh>. There
wasn't a debate.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: There was no debating. It was a really hard-scrabble
life. But with that difficulty, I have found, at least in my opinion, the
beautiful simplicity of it all. It fascinates me. I'm enamored with it.
HENRY PARKE: What was your first
professional acting job?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: I was in Dallas,
Texas, doing free theater. The producer of the play said, do you have an agent?
I said, no. So she signed me, and about a week later, a movie came through
Dallas called Robocop. My first audition, and BOOM! -- Paul Verhoeven
hires me! And that was that. I got a Screen Actors Guild card, went to Los
Angeles, and moved into an apartment. My second night in L.A., I walked the red
carpet for Robocop!
HENRY PARKE: I thought that Dr.
Quinn was your first Western, but you did a Young Riders –-
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: -- And a Paradise.
HENRY PARKE: And after that, you were writing films like The
Gundown, Ambush at Dark Creek, Hot Bath an’ a Stiff Drink.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Hot Bath
was a fun movie to co-write and be a part of. And Ambush with Kix
Brooks, and The Gundown with Peter Coyote. It's all pretty great
<laugh>.
HENRY PARKE: What was the best
thing about making Dr. Quinn?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: The people. To this good day. I just had
lunch with Jane Seymour and Joe Lando, like last week. We're still great
friends. Joe and I were thick as thieves! And Jane Seymour was fantastic, and
Helen Udy (who played Myra Bing) and the whole cast -- and Beth Sullivan, the creator.
So my memories were just sharing such amazing time with amazing people and
being blessed. I mean, a six-and-a-half-year run, it's cliché, but we were
family. And, I’m happy that I met a lot of cool directors along the way. And of
course, the writing was so good. I’m biased, but that was a great series.
HENRY PARKE: Dr. Quinn was a
great way to introduce kids to Westerns, because it was not childish, but it
was family appropriate. Most Western today, even the good ones are often so
rough, you can't really take kids to them.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: It's so true. It is still a generational
show. People that grew up watching Dr. Quinn ended up having children,
and they've introduced the show to their kids. So 30 years later, I'm still
talking to fans, whether they saw it originally or whether it was ‘my mom and
dad turned me onto that show.’ It still has life, still has a global presence. It
had such beautiful stories. It mirrored problems of society that were written
and reflected into an 1800s environment, which was pretty cool.
HENRY PARKE: Yes, indeed. I understand that Beth Sullivan created
a spinoff pilot for you, California. She certainly went all out on the
cast: John Saxon, James Brolin, Eddie Albert, Edward Albert. I'm surprised it
didn't click.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: That was a darn
shame. CBS decided that a spinoff of my character would be a good idea. So Beth
wrote and produced a great pilot, and for whatever reason, CBS didn't pick it
up. Of course, it broke my heart, because it was a great show, and great to be
number one on the call sheets. But the deal was, if California went;
great. If California did not go, you're still Hank Lawson on Dr.
Quinn. So it was a win-win opportunity.
HENRY PARKE: So while you were on Dr. Quinn, you
started co-writing movies with one of the show’s writer/producers. How many
have you written?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: I think I've
probably written 12 or 13 scripts that have been made into feature films.
HENRY PARKE: Which is amazing as
you know.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: <laugh>.
Yeah, <laugh>The harder you work, the luckier you get, you know what I'm
saying?
HENRY PARKE: How did Long
Shadows start?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Long Shadows
has been a long journey. Grainger Hines, great actor, from Hot Bath an’ a
Stiff Drink, probably 13 years ago, calls me like three years ago. “I saw Common
Threads (note: Shockley’s award-winning Western short). I just read this
script by Shelley Reid. I think you need to direct it.” I read it. I called
him. This is really good. There's a twist in here that is so unique. Let's work
on it. So Grainger and Shelley and I worked on it for a year, maybe more. I
showed it to my partners, they dove in with some great notes, and said, let's
green light it. So we landed at old Tucson Studios, that I was very familiar
with from past projects. Then it goes into casting and pre-production,
production and post, and we're in theaters November 7th of this year.
HENRY PARKE: A grown son seeks
revenge on the people who killed his parents. It’s classical, but it's also
familiar. How would you describe what sets your film apart?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Well, it's a
story about good over evil. It's a story about redemption, love of family, a
second chance at life and love. And the twist sets the story apart. I watched a
bunch of European films to be inspired. French, Russian, Italian, Polish,
British, because I love the landscape, the texture, the feel of those kinds of
films. So in Long Shadows, and you've seen it, the costume design is so
rich and beautiful. I wanted it to look like a European film, the production
design. I wanted it to be textured and layered and beautiful. I didn't wanna
make a dirt Western. Besides the twist in the story, I think the look, the
score. I didn't want fiddles and banjos, I wanted classical music -- Tommy
Fields, created a beautiful classical-inspired score. Paula Rogers’ costume
designer -- just genius. So I think that sets us apart. And the acting is
really darn good. I told Blaine and Sarah, the two young leads, I said, there's
nowhere to hide with me guys. <laugh>, I'm an actor by trade
<laugh>, so I'm gonna see it and I'm gonna smell it. And they laughed
and, and they were brilliant. And then surround them with Dermot Maroney,
Jacqueline Bisset, Dominic Monaghan, and Grainger Hines, Chris Mulkey, Ronnie
Blevins, Mike Markoff: a bunch of really great actors, and you have a chance,
you know?
HENRY PARKE: Absolutely. It's got
so much more depth than you expect going in.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Don't check your
phone, don't go to Instagram, because every word means something in the movie. If
you miss a couple minutes, you're gonna be like, what happened?
HENRY PARKE: What was Jacqueline
Bisset like to work with? She looks wonderful; she's a beautiful 81.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: She's still, I
mean, I had a crush on Jacqueline back in the day. Every red-blooded male had
<laugh>. She was so stunning, and she still is gorgeous. She's so elegant
and eloquent: she's a serious actress. She was intrigued by the story, wanted
to do a Western, really liked the character, but she wanted the character
fleshed out. And some of her notes really took her character to a much better
place. She was very pointed and very specific and very, like I said, serious
about her role, her costume, interaction with the other actors. I mean, you,
you saw the movie. She's wonderful.
HENRY PARKE: She is. And what is Dermot
Mulroney like to work with?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Dermot is awesome,
he's a great guy. He's been around the block, I've been around the block, so he
came in knowing we were both veterans and pros.I told him what I thought about
his character, and he told me what he thought about his character. He basically
was already on point, the second he landed. Dermot is the kind of actor, when
you say action, there's something that vibrates. And he bubbles just enough,
'cause he's a movie star. That's what Dermot did. He has that essence about
him, the
je ne sais quoi of it all. So he was a delight and
such a sweet guy.
HENRY PARKE: Did you consider
giving yourself a role?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: You know, I had a
role and I cut myself out. I was the barkeeper inside the bar where Marcus
encounters the man who killed his father. I just cut all my dialogue out, so
I'm a featured extra <laugh>.
HENRY PARKE: I’ve never seen Blaine
May or Sarah Cortez before, and their characters carry most of the story. Where'd
you find them?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Tiiu Loigu, our
casting director found both of them. Blaine had a small part in a movie called Joe
Bell with Mark Wahlberg. We had, you can imagine, 2000 submissions for the
male lead. And Tiiu scrubbed through every one of them, boiled it down to a
bunch of names, did a bunch of zooms, watched a bunch of tapes. And Blaine just,
he had the essence. He's from Oklahoma. He rode a horse. His mom and dad were
in the rodeo world. He's the nicest guy. He's really smart. He's good looking. He
had longy hair, which was nice.
HENRY PARKE: You partial to long
hair on guys? Anything to do with 6 years on Dr. Quinn?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: <laugh>, Well,
I didn't watch some clean-cut guy. I wanted a guy that was a little bit shaggy looking.
And Blaine did a really great audition. And then I Zoomed with him. I said, I
want you to do the courtroom scene. He did it, and he was great, and so he won
that job. Sarah Cortez was the same. I had actually found an actress that I
really liked, another 2000 submissions for the Dulce Flores role. And I was
really intent; this woman was great. And Tiiu said to me, I found Dulce. I
said, we already got Dulce -- I really like this girl. And she goes, no, sit
down and press play. I pressed play, and
Sarah Cortez came on and she just, she's so nuanced, so believable, so real. And
I was like, oh my gosh, Sarah Cortez is Dulce. On the set, I'm sitting
there with a little monitor, and I would just whisper something in Sarah's ear,
like a little thought. And she would bring a whole new color to the
performance. She's a fine actress. She trained at University of Houston
Theater. She’s the real deal. I really hope that this is his and her star-maker
moment; I think it will be.
HENRY PARKE: Since the 1980s, when
you started acting, there's been such a change in the whole casting procedure.
From open calls and callbacks, to self-taping, and Zoom. Has this made it
harder, easier, better, worse?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Well, I think
it's easier for the actors, because they can do 50 takes until they get one right,
and send in their tape. I came up the old way: you walk into a room with a
bunch of people and you perform, you audition. I know how hard that is. I know
the preparation it takes. And I respect that with COVID, the world changed, changed
to Zooming. So I think the actors have it easier, 'cause they can keep just
doing it and doing it, doing it, until they get a great one. The problem is, do
they really kill it when they get on the set? Was that a hundred takes on their
self-take, or are they really great? Fortunately, we didn't have that problem: we
hired great actors across the board. But on my next film that I get to direct, if
you live in Los Angeles, you’re gonna come into a room and we're gonna go old
school. 'cause I love that. All my other films that I produced, I read with the
actors. I'm right there with them. It's just a whole ‘nother dynamic, a
truthful and an honest dynamic. And there's nowhere to hide.
HENRY PARKE: Obviously you came
into your directorial debut a lot more prepared for a Western than most people
would. Were there any surprises? Anything you didn't anticipate?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: I don't think so, because honestly, A.J. Raitano,
the cinematographer and I are great friends for like 15 years. We worked together
on many things, so he and I were just cocked and loaded. We shot-listed, storyboarded
-- we both knew Old Tucson, so we knew what we were up against for exterior
shots, for horse riding shots. We found the gully where the shootout takes
place, and had that shaft built. When you're prepared, I mean, we knew every
single setup, every single angle, every single lens prior; we were out there at
four in the morning waiting for the sun to come up for some scenes. We were out
there all day long seeing where the shadows were, where the sun was going. Everything
was mapped out, so honestly there were no surprises. And the actors came
totally prepared; the only enemy was time, time and money.
HENRY PARKE: How many days did you
shoot?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: 20 days. It was quick, considering the horse-chases
and the gunplay; it was a lot. But because we were so prepared and the actors
were so prepared, we were able to do it; just sheer force of will. You get out
there before sunrise, and you shoot for
12 hours, then A.J. and I scouted every weekend before and during production. Because
a lot of the interior sets were being built as we went. Unless the set is
built, it's kinda hard to know where your camera's gonna go. <laugh> So every
Saturday and Sunday, we'd go out there when a new interior had been built out, kept
preparing. A ton of work, but incredibly joyful experience.
HENRY PARKE: Any final thoughts?
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: Long Shadows,
it's a beautiful movie and I hope that people go to the movie theater to watch
it. Because there's nothing greater than a theatrical experience for a film.
You can take your family, your kids, your grandkids. It was designed for that
kind of audience. Share it that way. And so I hope people go experience it and
talk about it. And we were on the Dr. Quinn topic. Part of Jane and Joe
having lunch, the three of us is there's a concerted effort to bring the show
back. So we're walking that road right now and trying to get the pieces aligned.
HENRY PARKE: That'd be terrific.
WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: That would be pretty special. So it takes a few pieces of the puzzle and certain dominoes to fall the right way, but the effort is being made on all fronts. A conversation with Beth Sullivan is coming up. I actually wrote a pilot script to bring the show back, and Beth's giving me notes. And Jim Johnson, the producer, is doing what he can on the business side, and Jane and Joe are in, if we can figure it out. So we'll see what fate holds for us.
WESTERNS ON BROADWAY 2025
When it comes to theater, 2025 was
a busier year for the stage than the screen. There were two new
Western-adjacent musicals on Broadway, and a revival of a Western drama. Dead
Outlaw is the story of Elmer McCurdy, a minor outlaw who died in a
shoot-out with police after a bungled 1911 train robbery. His mummified corpse was displayed in
traveling shows for years, then misidentified as a dummy, and finally
rediscovered hanging from a noose at a Long Beach amusement pier, during the
filming of a Six Million Dollar Man episode. Called “The surprisingly
feel-good musical of the season,” by the New York Times, it received 7 Tony
nominations and numerous Best Musical awards.
Floyd Collins, which would receive 6 Tony
nominations, is based on the tragic story of a Kentucky spelunker who in 1925
became trapped in a cavern. Despite the media circus, and well-meant rescue
attempts, he died underground. The incident inspired Billy Wilder’s
enthrallingly cynical film Ace in the Hole (1951), wherein rotten
reporter Kirk Douglas prolongs the man’s entrapment to keep selling papers.
Without that nasty edge, the musical seems dreary and pointless; “Is That
Remarkable? (The real straight poop),” performed by a chorus of cynical
reporters, is the only time the show comes to life.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is adapted not from the John Ford
film, but its source, the Dorothy M. Johnson novella, and like Floyd Collins,
suffers from not being able to borrow from the movie version. While the play
benefits from the more contained story, the film is both more grand and more
nuanced, and story elements, including Liberty Valance’s attack on the local
newspaper editor, and the campaign for statehood, are sorely missed.
AND THAT'S A WRAP!
Please check out the
November/December 2025 issue of True West, featuring my article, Val Kilmer in
His Cups, about the making of Tombstone from the point of view of costume
designer Joseph Porro, and my review of the new Blu-Ray reease, Hopalong
Cassidy, the Legacy Collection, Volume 1.
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright November 2025 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved
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