Move over, Sawyer, there’s a new Josh Holloway character in town—the old school, edgy getaway car driver introduced in the Duster trailer. The new Max series, premiering May 15, reunites Holloway with his Lost boss J.J. Abrams, who co-created the series with LaToya Morgan (Into The Badlands, The Walking Dead). Per Esquire, the writers drew inspiration for Holloway’s character Jim from Steve McQueen in Bullitt, as well as other ’70s cultural touchstones like The Godfather, Fairlight View, and Paper Moon.
“Set in the 1970s Southwest, Duster explores the life of a gutsy getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate that goes from dangerous to wildly, stupidly dangerous when a tenacious young agent comes into town hellbent on taking his crime family down,” according to the series synopsis. In the Duster trailer, Jim is reluctant to join forces with FBI agent Nina (Rachel Hilson), until she suggests that his employer Ezra Saxton (Keith David) was responsible for the death of Jim’s brother. If her accusation turns out to be true, “Then I’ll kill him myself,” Jim threatens. “Sax” is a formidable enemy, but Jim and Nina develop their own Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid partnership—with Nina stepping up as a reluctant Paul Newman.
“All I had was the title, the vision of the phone booth and being a fan of Josh Holloway. When I called him with this seed of an idea and he said yes, that was when I started looking for someone to do this with. Finding LaToya was a dream come true. We have such different life experiences, but we have so much in common. We both could feel the potential in what this might be,” Abrams told Esquire. “Duster is about a clash of opposites,” Morgan added. “It’s about people from opposite worlds that come together under crazy circumstances, and are forced to work together. We watch their relationship grow over the course of the [first] season.”
