Lou Diamond Phillips on Gangland, Young Guns 3, and The Chair Company Season 2: Podcast

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Lou Diamond Phillips has played enough cops, cowboys, and criminals to know that the line between hero and villain is usually drawn in pencil. In Gangland, the La Bamba and Young Guns star takes on Teddy Sharp, a tribal police officer whose questionable methods conceal a fierce devotion to the community he’s sworn to protect. It’s a bruising neo-Western about generational trauma, gang violence, and the complicated business of doing the right thing when nobody agrees on what that means. Speaking with Kyle Meredith, Phillips digs into the film’s Indigenous roots, the surprising resurgence of his cult classics, the proposed Young Guns 3, and the increasingly bizarre world of HBO’s The Chair Company. Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts.

Phillips was hooked on Gangland almost immediately, particularly because its screenplay came from a writer with firsthand experience as a tribal police officer. “One of the beauties of this script is that it’s so honest and so authentic,” he explains. As an executive producer, Phillips recruited his longtime Longmire technical adviser Marcus Red Thunder to help shape the production, which filmed on Cheyenne and Arapaho land in Oklahoma over just 18 days. One memorable sequence involving a herd of 600 bison was added practically on the fly after director Vincent Grashaw discovered the animals during location scouting. But the real payoff has come from Indigenous audiences, whose enthusiastic responses have helped turn screenings into conversations about ending cycles of violence and addiction. “It’s a tough film, but it’s an honest film,” Phillips says.

Of course, you can’t get Lou Diamond Phillips in a room without someone asking about Young Guns. And he’s just as baffled as the fans about why a third installment hasn’t happened. “I honestly don’t understand why Guns 3 isn’t already a green light,” he says, revealing that he’s read the screenplay and considers it “unbelievable.” He’s equally interested in revisiting his supernatural thriller The First Power, which has developed a cult following that includes Jordan Peele. Meanwhile, Phillips is enjoying the freedom to get weird in The Chair Company, where his casting surprised even him. “Who thought of me for this?” he laughs. And there’s more strangeness coming: “We’re shooting the second season now. And bro, it’s crazier than ever.”

Listen to Lou Diamond Phillips talk about Gangland, Young Guns 3, The Chair Company, and more in the new episode above or by watching the video below. Keep up on all the latest episodes by following Kyle Meredith With… on your favorite podcast platform; plus, check out all the series on the Consequence Podcast Network.