LOS ANGELES – In the years since HBO’s “Deadwood” was canceled in 2006, the story of the show’s potential return became almost as mythic as the acclaimed Western.
Fans and TV critics constantly asked if David Milch’s story of a rough-and-tumble 1870s South Dakota town would be revisited. As time passed, the stars figured “Deadwood” was dead.
“I assumed it never would happen,” says Timothy Olyphant, who plays lawman Seth Bullock. “It didn’t occur to me it was going to happen until my feet were in the mud” on the unpaved streets of the frontier community.
Whatever their doubts, Olyphant (“Justified,” “Santa Clarita Diet”) and Ian McShane (“American Gods,” “John Wick” franchise), a Golden Globe winner for his portrayal of saloon owner Al Swearengen, are very happy the series finally gets a proper goodbye with “Deadwood: The Movie” (Friday, 8 EDT/PDT).
More: Ian McShane: Return to ‘Deadwood’ was a ‘surreal, out-of-body’ experience
“It’s an elegiac ending to a fine series,” McShane says. “I’m a proud participant in a show that will be indelibly emblazoned upon my heart and my brain.”
Over three seasons and 36 episodes, the series tracked Deadwood’s development from gold-mining camp to frontier town, complete with appearances by real historical characters, including Bullock, Swearengen, Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) and Wild Bill Hickok.
In the series finale, Swearengen killed an innocent young prostitute to protect the favored Trixie (Paula Malcomson) from the wrath of villainous businessman George Hearst (Gerald McRaney), and a looming war with Hearst’s army of Pinkertons never happened.
“That’s because the show was cut off the air abruptly,” McShane says. “I think Season 3 was always David preparing for Season 4, which is what every great writer has in mind.”
The film, written by Milch and directed by Daniel Minahan, returns to Deadwood 10 years after the setting of the original series, as South Dakota joins the union in 1889. The statehood celebration brings favorite characters back together and features the return of Hearst, now a U.S. Senator from California.
The reunions stir longtime rivalries, test loyalties and open old wounds.
“The community is going through something that is unifying, but each character has a major event and decision, each at their own crossroads,” Olyphant says. “This story, like a lot of great stories, is about chickens coming home to roost.”
He sees the passage of time – both literally and on the show – as poetic.
“It’s such a lovely coincidence that what might have been David’s long procrastination to get to this script allowed him to find a significant historical event that would be a reason for all these characters to come back,” Olyphant says, adding that it was worth the wait. “The words that come out of David Milch are special. And it’s just a joy when you get your hands on them.”
Olyphant’s praise takes on a bittersweet air after Milch (“NYPD Blue”) recently revealed he has Alzheimer’s disease in interviews with Vulture and The New Yorker. Milch, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2015, told The New Yorker that continuing to write was imperative and that he feels an increased sense of urgency.
“There’s an acute sense of time’s passage,” he told the magazine. “Things are important. You don’t want to be inconsequential in your perspective on things. I feel that with an increasing acuteness – that everything counts.”
Most series regulars joined Olyphant and McShane when they started shooting in October, including Malcomson, Molly Parker (Alma Ellsworth) and William Sanderson (E.B. Farnum)
More: TV writer David Milch, creator of ‘NYPD Blue,’ ‘Deadwood, reveals he has Alzheimer’s
“There must have been a lot of goodwill to make this happen. It really said a lot about what this experience meant to all of us that everyone did this,” Olyphant says, adding that the passage of a dozen years heightened feelings. “A lot of times when shows end, the goodbyes are quite emotional. On this one, the hellos were quite emotional.”
As for Deadwood’s denizens, a decade has resulted in many changes.
Life has been good to Bullock, now a U.S. marshal, married and the father of “three beautiful kids,” Olyphant says. “He’s managed to maintain a level of peace. He’s survived and he’s prospered.”
The profanely eloquent Swearengen has had a different experience.
“As Tennessee Williams would have put it: Declining circumstances,” McShane says. “You can’t hit the bottle that hard for that long without a little something happening to you. He’s in a little decline, which I think makes the character more interesting even than he was before because he’s determined to hang on to his self-styled intellect, his attitude toward life, his belligerence.”
He tips his hat to Milch for making the fictionalized Swearengen more intriguing than the real one. “He gave more of an interesting life to my character than was there.”
Olyphant, McShane and their castmates didn’t know the show was done when they filmed the Season 3 finale, so this time they made sure to embrace the series’ last stand.
“There were cast members whose characters had passed away in the original series who showed up to the set just to be part of it. It’s a tribute to David,” Olyphant says.
He and McShane also are fully aware that, with the movie finally complete, the “Deadwood” revival rumor mill is shutting down.
“It was weird because every day of the last week it was goodbye to somebody. This was real. The first time it was taken away, you thought there would be next year,” McShane says. “This time, when you said goodbye, it was goodbye.”
