Richard Linklater Doesn’t Believe In Hit Men, but He Does Believe In Patience

It was way back in 2001 that Richard Linklater read a Texas Monthly article about a supposed contract killer in Houston who was actually working with law enforcement. He was fascinated by the story, but he couldn’t crack the script for years—until he teamed up with Glen Powell and created a third act about an undercover hit man who falls for one of his clients.

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Hit Man, which also starred Powell, premiered at the 2023 Venice and Toronto film festivals and then was bought by Netflix for $20 million, the largest deal at TIFF that year. It was released on the streamer in June to critical and audience acclaim, especially for its agile and entertaining script and Powell’s performance as a persona-shifting hit man.

For Linklater, the filmmaker behind Dazed and Confused, the Before series, and Boyhood, the film marks the end of a long journey. But as the director points out on Little Gold Men, he is always on one long journey or another. Indeed, the two films he’s shot since Hit Man both had 10-year gestations. Here, Linklater explains people’s obsession with hit men; looks back at his “make-or-break” film, Dazed and Confused; and laments the ways the indie market has changed.

Vanity Fair: This movie established that hit men aren’t real. That was pretty shocking to me.

Richard Linklater: I knew hit men weren’t real in what people think they are, so that’s kept me intrigued all these years. I would follow hit men cases—a lot of people arrested for soliciting, but I never saw a hit man arrested. But people just don’t want to believe it, and I’m pretty sure this movie’s not going to change anything. There’s still going to be people arrested for thinking they can hire a hit man. I always thought it was just some kind of comment on consumer culture, modern capitalism—that you could just hire and buy anything, even another person’s life.

If it’s in thousands of movies, it must be true.

Of course, it’s in books, movies, TV. It’s just such a great character—actors want to play him. It’s fun to be a hit man, this cold killer. Films basically invented the hit man. And I think people don’t question it because it just fits into our myths about ourselves. I had to analyze it a lot once the film came out and I was talking about it. And the darkest notion that I felt myself having is, like, people want there to be hit men. It should be good news, right? That there aren’t hit men.

Hit Man was bought by Netflix out of the festivals and had the biggest deal of the season.

Which is a sad reflection of the marketplace, but keep going.

From what I’ve heard, there were a few parties interested. What is the process like for you when you’re deciding on the film’s home?

It felt kind of largely out of my hands. It’s so weird. You make a film, you have all the control, and then it’s like, Okay, where are we going to end up? And then it really wasn’t close. I appreciated some people’s passion for it, but for the people who put money into the film, you can’t tell them you’re not going to get your money back for maybe three years. It was just a weird position. It wasn’t even much of a choice.

Glen Powell had an incredible summer between this and Twisters, and has been heralded as the next big movie star. What do you think is his secret sauce?

I’ve seen these qualities in Glen for a long time. It’s fun to see the world kind of catch up to that. In movies it’s like, Hey, who do you like? Who do you want to hang out with? And Glen is actually that guy. He’s smart and funny and good-looking—all those things. He is as presented, no act going on there. There’s an authenticity there. I think you see it in people who kind of know themselves and feel comfortable—a certain swagger, a certain little charm. And I knew we could push that. You know, like a Paul Newman can be a real jerk. He can be a terrible person, and you still like him. They hold the screen no matter what the hell they’re doing.

When you look back, was there a specific moment when you realized you could make a career out of filmmaking?

My make-or-break film was Dazed and Confused. I had made two super indies, and a ton of shorts, but I was like, Oh shit, can I make a real movie? Can I deal with the politics? Can I deal with all the things? So I suffered through that and I felt like I got out alive with the film that I wanted to make. And I just never had those problems ever again. And it doesn’t show in the final film, which is an accomplishment in itself. It’s not a compromise movie, but I had to work so hard for that. Even the actors that worked on it weren’t hardly aware of the shit I was going through. And I take blame for that shit. It’s just something you have to go through.

You filmed Blue Moon this summer. What’s going on with this movie?

Since Hit Man, I’ve shot two films. One’s my French film, Nouvelle Vague, set in 1959, and then Blue Moon, set in ’43, in the New York world of musical theater. Two portraits of artists, I guess.

Blue Moon was something you’d been sitting with for a while as well.

Both of these are 10-year gestations.

That seems to be thematic for you.

Yeah, I’m not afraid to sit with something and just wait until the time is right. Some things have happened kind of quickly, but that’s not the way it rolls out. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have someone giving me money, like, “Oh, you finished the script? Here, go do it.” It’s like, No, you’re gonna think about this in 10 years and have to fight to make sure the time is right. But I don’t mind a long gestation period, because then by the time you’re actually shooting, you’ve really answered all those questions.

With Boyhood and now Merrily We Roll Along, where you’re actually doing the filming over many, many years—

In both of those, it wasn’t a 10-year thinking and starting. It was kind of starting, and then you’re kind of parceling out the thinking over the years. It’s a jump-in rather quickly at the beginning.

I actually wondered if, after Boyhood’s success, if other people would try to do something similar. If you’d have a few copycats out there. But I think you’re the only one who’s done it.

It’s such a weird ask. There’s reasons no one does that. It’s wildly impractical; there’s a lot of things that can go wrong. And then [for] filmmakers, who all are control freaks, it’s giving up a certain element of control to the unknown. You can’t control the future, so you have to be okay with collaborating with a big unknown partner, which I like. It doesn’t scare me, but it still doesn’t make much sense on paper.

Do you consider yourself a naturally patient person?

It’s a combo of energized and driven. I have a lot of stories I’m trying to tell. And the only reason I’m okay with 10 years of that is because I’m doing other things. But I think I am patient. I’m patient with actors. You know that thing, “they don’t suffer fools”? I do suffer fools. But I’m still persistent. To get in the ring with me is to work.

Are there any up-and-coming filmmakers you’re really excited about?

You show your age when you say, like, “up-and-coming,” and then you say someone that’s 47; they’re not 28. It’s like, “but compared to me.” [Laughs] I don’t pretend to have my ear to the ground in that way, but I am in contact [with some], just through the Austin film society. We help along films in our own way, with workshops and stuff. I’m constantly around young aspiring filmmakers, and I find that both inspiring and kind of a little sad to me too, unfortunately—just knowing that those opportunities that were there when I was their age, I’m not sure where those are now.

I think the indie world actually hasn’t changed at all. It’s young people and people of all stripes trying to get their stories told. I find that beautiful. What’s really changed is the studios. They don’t exist anymore as a conduit for any of that, to help you along or to even give you your next film. After my early films, you’d have a meeting: “Hey, what are you doing next? What stories do you want to tell?” They don’t want to ask anyone that anymore, I’m pretty sure. They might ask in general, but they’re really asking, “Do you want to come work on this franchise film of ours? Are you going to be a good filmmaker and take our notes and work on this sequel?” And I think so many do. That’s the new trajectory, and no one’s blaming anyone because that’s really the only game in town. But it’s just kind of sad.

I look back and realize I was just fucking lucky by birth that someone would give me a couple million dollars to go make Before Sunrise—just weird films that I got made. I’m not saying those films couldn’t get made today, just the funding wouldn’t be coming via a studio or an independent kind of thing.

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