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THE STAR SCOOP:
How would you introduce Justified to viewers?

WILLIAM RAGSDALE:
People compare it to a western, but it’s not really like that. It’s based on an Elmore Leonard short story. The character of Raylan Givens is a U.S. Marshall. He’s an old guy from Kentucky and goes on and lives his life. At one point, he has a scrape with his bosses and they send him back to Kentucky, which is kind of the last place he’d want to go, and that’s where our story picks up. He’s very much a loner. He’s back where he started from and he’s trying to deal with it.

THE STAR SCOOP:
What drew you to wanting to be involved in Justified? What appealed to you about it?

WILLIAM RAGSDALE:
Just from a purely personal point of view, I had worked with the creator Graham Yost, many years ago. I would do a sit com and he was writing sit coms. We had worked together on a show I did called Herman’s Head. He became a feature guy, a television guy. I saw him again five or six years ago. He’d done another pilot. It was another hour drama, and there was this great character in it. I ended up getting the part. We kept in touch and this came along, and that came through; it worked out!

THE STAR SCOOP:
You play Gary. Can you talk about this character?

WILLIAM RAGSDALE:
I play Gary Hawkins. He’s a nice, realistic guy. He’s positive. He’s trying to make a buck and get ahead. I just happen to be the new husband of the main character’s ex-wife, Winona. When he comes back to town, he introduces himself by breaking into my house and sitting at my table and having a beer. So that sort of gets him off on the wrong foot. We end up having this tenuous sprightly competitive relationship over his ex-wife. He’s [Gary] certainly threatened by him. He’s a macho guy and I’m not that. We’re still exploring that.

THE STAR SCOOP:
You’ve been able to be involved in a lot of TV shows over your career. People will recognize you from so many projects. What are your thoughts on being involved in so many shows and are there any you’d like to appear in next?

WILLIAM RAGSDALE:
The funny thing about being an actor is, at least from my point of view, you don’t spend a lot of time reflecting. You’re just on to the next thing [laughs]. The work is so tricky to get sometimes. I’ve spent so much time just looking forward and trying to work on what I’m working on at the time that I don’t really think of myself as having done that much. Looking back on the resume it’s like, oh, yeah. An actor has a couple of lifetimes, I guess. I’ve been very fortunate. When you’re first starting out, for me anyway, I was a little shy [about] telling people I was an actor. I didn’t have a lot of stuff on my resume. When you have one scene as a background guy in a television movie and call yourself an actor, that’s a little odd at first. Now I’m more comfortable with it. I’m really not aware of it until people bring it up. People that I meet in the professional world say, man you’ve been around forever. Really? I guess so. It’s great. I’ve been fortunate to work in all the venues: theater, and movies and TV and the subgenres of comedy and drama. I guess I am very, very fortunate.

THE STAR SCOOP:
Is there anything in particular that has allowed you to work consistently in an industry where it’s all about the inconsistency?

WILLIAM RAGSDALE:
I don’t know. I’m pretty comfortable doing everything that there is to do. That opens up my options. I was fortunate to also fit the description of a lot of characters. When I was young, I was boy-next-doorish, and I got a little older an I was man-next doorish. Now, I’m not sure. I’m able to fit into the shoes of what they’re doing.

THE STAR SCOOP:
What other projects do you have going on now?

WILLIAM RAGSDALE:
I really don’t know. I’m not at that point [to say] two years from now I’ll be doing a film. It’s almost week by week. I don’t have anything really beyond this show, which will probably start back in the fall. It’s pilot season and what they call Indie season, so there are a lot of independent films going on. I don’t have anything really particular.

THE STAR SCOOP:
For people who haven’t tuned in yet to Justified, why should they?

WILLIAM RAGSDALE:
I think that the important thing, or the most notable thing is that it’s a new show, and we the pilot was really great and got great reviews and the audience really responded to it. But it took them a few episodes to find their feet, to find the voices of the characters and everything. It starts getting into more relationship stuff, and the people from [Raylan's] past. I think that’s when the show really works. If you’ve seen it and you like it, that’s wonderful, keep watching. If you’ve seen it and you weren’t so convinced, it really does take off. Networks need to know that shows can be given time to find their niche and voice. It’s really different from all of the other cop shows, medical shows and all these things we see perennially and endlessly. It’s a little more middle America. It’s really what TV needs.