‘Duster’ Stars And Creator On Paying Tribute To The 1970s

The season finale of Duster, J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan’s latest TV show, will be released tomorrow on Max, and I caught up with the actors and creator behind the 1970s adrenaline-fueled crime thriller series, Josh Holloway, Rachel Hilson and Latoya Morgan.

Set in the Southwest in the 1972, Duster tells the story of the FBI’s first Black woman agent, Nina Hayes, played by Rachel Hilson, who will have to overcome many obstacles to stop a crime syndicate. But in order to gather all the evidences she needs, Nina will have to collaborate with Jim Ellis, portrayed by Josh Holloway, the getaway driver of the syndicate’s boss.

Tomorrow will be the last time the audience is able to admire the show’s opening credits, filled with hidden easter eggs, adding to the fun and creativity of this animated sequence.

I spoke to Morgan about the creative and narrative decisions behind the opening credits. She said, “We wanted the chance to really immerse the audience in the story, and the title sequence was just another way to do that. We had this great company called the Meat department, who did our animation. We wanted to feel like you’re in a little toy box, like you’re on the drive with this toy Duster.”

Abrams has had Duster’s opening sequence in mind for two decades. When he called Morgan and Holloway, whom he’s been friend with since they worked together on Lost, he described his vision with a phone ringing in the middle of the desert, a car going very fast towards it, a man getting out of the car and answering the call.

To Morgan, Abrams has been “really fantastic to work with and a great collaborator.”

She said, “I was shocked because first I was like ‘J.J. Abrams is calling me? This is weird.’ But I was very very happy and excited. When we met, we just had a meeting of the minds, we have very similar sensibilities, we like the same stuff, and we both wanted to do something we both felt hadn’t been done on TV for a while. And that was to have this sort of throwback, crime, thriller show.”

Holloway said, “I had to really concentrate and really listen to him because my mind started wrapping around all of that and what it would be like. I was like ‘Stay with J.J, he’s still telling you more about this show.’ But that’s what happens to us as artists or actors, you start embodying this character immediately if it’s something you’re attracted to, it’s like a magnet. The world of the 1970s blew up in my mind.”

Hilson said, “I had a little bit of a different journey from Josh, I auditioned, I didn’t know much about this character but I knew she was from Baltimore, which I am also from Baltimore, so I found that to be very cool. After reading the script, which was under wrap for a while, I just saw this character, I wanted to get the chance to embody her. And I think knowing J.J’s body of work, he really champions the heroine, so knowing that and knowing more about LaToya, Nina was a no brainer for me.”

Holloway immediately found himself in Jim’s character, having grown up with “dirt roads in Georgia in the 1970s.”

He said, “I have been driving since I was 9 years old, the ranch truck and the tractor. I remember dad, and he looked exactly like Abraham Lincoln by the way, picture that! He had the beard without the mustache, that Hamish thing. He was driving his little MGB and his hair was blowing. I remember him coming home from work, and I was like, ‘That was the 1970s!’ He was a nudist, he walked around nude all the time, so I lived in that era, it was simpler back then. And I was like ‘Ah! This feels like when I was a kid!’ So I really immersed myself back in my memories.”

He added: “I always drive with the windows down, I hate AC, we didn’t have AC growing up, so it’s windows down, hair blowing, music blasting, big VA. That’s who I am,” Holloway said.

Holloway also knew right away what Jim was listening to in his car. He said, “I found what Jim drives to, and it’s Jimmy Hendrix, 100%.”

Everything in Duster feels like it could have been made in the 1970s, from the photography to the set locations. Morgan said, “When we’re out in the desert, we wanted those wide vistas to feel very cinematic.”

Over the past few weeks, Duster has been a perfect watch for any 1970s aesthetic, music and movie aficionado, and the creators have made the very creative choice to add real elements and real people into their fictional story. In episode 2, Jim has to steal Elvis Presley’s own Blue Suede Shoes in order to get himself out of a very dangerous situation.

Morgan said, “It’s crazy that he literally has to steal the Blue Suede Shoes! But that’s why we wanted it to be about Jim, having to come up with a crazy compromise in order to satisfy one guy, so he can get out of trouble with the other guy. That was because we wanted to do something in Elvis’ honeymoon house. This was close from Arizona, it could be a place where Jim drives to and we can have a party there.”

Duster is now streaming on Max.