Asked whether he had considered retirement, Tommy Lee Jones answered, “Yes, I have.” He followed that acknowledgment with his decision: “I’m not gonna do it.”
The 80-year-old actor was speaking with E! News correspondent Will Marfuggi in a joint interview with Ethan Hawke published Oct. 15. The two were discussing their work on the second season of The Lowdown.
Jones joins the FX drama as the estranged father of Hawke’s Lee Raybon, a Tulsa bookseller and self-described “truthstorian” whose investigations repeatedly put him in danger.
Jones said the world creator Sterlin Harjo had built appealed to him enough that he would have welcomed any part in it. He also described enjoying the atmosphere on the production.
Hawke Credits Harjo With Giving the Actors Room to Work
Hawke praised Harjo for trusting the actors and cinematographer while maintaining a clear sense of how he wanted the show to work. Jones agreed that careful structure helped make room for the performers to contribute.
The father-son scenes required them to play affection alongside years of painful experiences. Hawke said the writing allowed the characters to confront that history without reducing their relationship to either love or hostility.
In a separate Oct. 13 interview with the New York Post, Hawke recalled committing to the series when only one episode had a completed script. He and Harjo developed their ideas about Lee together after previously working on Reservation Dogs.
His Character Arrives After Lee Told His Daughter He Was Dead
Jones’ character, Lee Raybon Senior, is known as Frog. FX describes him as a grifter whose unexpected arrival creates an immediate problem for Lee: he has told his teenage daughter, Francis, that her grandfather is dead.
Francis, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong, welcomes the chance to know him. Lee is much less enthusiastic, and their attempts to coexist expose similarities between the two men.
The family trouble develops alongside Lee’s next investigation. Betty Gilpin joins the cast as Ginger, a public defender whose client has disappeared from a state prison. Lee becomes involved in her search after an unruly acceptance speech at a local journalism awards ceremony brings him to her attention.
Jones Joined His Castmates for the Austin Premiere
Jones attended the Oct. 7 screening at AFS Cinema in Austin, posing for photographs alone and with Hawke and Armstrong. Harjo also attended, as Wealth of Geeks previously reported.
He wore jeans, a blue button-up shirt and a black blazer. Coverage of the event described it as his first red carpet appearance since the December 2023 premiere of Finestkind, nearly three years earlier.
His Television Career Includes an Emmy and an HBO Directing Job
Jones won an Emmy in 1983 for The Executioner’s Song. Six years later, he received another nomination for playing Woodrow Call in Lonesome Dove, according to the Television Academy.
His subsequent television work included directing and starring opposite Samuel L. Jackson in HBO’s 2011 film The Sunset Limited. Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s play, the two-character drama unfolds in a New York apartment as the men debate faith, despair and the value of life.
Discussing that production with The New Yorker in 2011, Jones praised McCarthy’s writing and the freedom HBO had given them. Jackson recalled agreeing to participate as soon as Jones sent him the material.
The Lowdown’s eight-episode second season began with a two-episode premiere on Oct. 14 on FX and Hulu, according to Disney+.