Screenwriter Hardy Janson, who is from Clear Lake originally
Courtesy Click Entertainment PR
Adrianne Palicki in ‘Due West”
Cineverse
Hardy Janson, Evan Miller, Adrianne Palicki, Caitlin McFarland and Emily Gipson attends the 2022 HollyShorts Film Festival opening night celebration at TCL Chinese Theatre on August 11, 2022 in Hollywood, California.
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The acclaimed indie film “Due West,” which landed on video-on-demand last week, is set and shot in the Texas Outback near Alpine in Far West Texas. But the Houston area can claim a bit of credit as the film’s lead writer, Hardy Janson, who wrote the movie with director Evan Miller, grew up in Clear Lake.
“I went to Clear Lake High School and there were some really good English teachers that I had that really encouraged me to write, whether it was poetry, short stories, anything like that.”
‘DUE WEST’ REVIEW: Texas film with Adrianne Palicki packs a punch.
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But the seed of “Due West,” which tells the story of a 40-something woman trying find to reproductive health care in her isolated community, was planted in Austin where Janson and Miller, who both went to University of Texas, first met as actors working on a Chevy commercial several years ago.
“He said, ‘I have this idea for a screenplay, but I don’t know how to write a screenplay,” recalls Janson in a Zoom interview from his current home base of Los Angeles. “And I was like, ‘I know how to write one but I don’t have an idea.’ So that’s how it started.”
A woman’s story
The pair’s first project was “Thoughts and Prayers,” a 2022 9-minute short starring Adrianne Palicki (“Friday Night Lights,” “John Wick”) and Zachary Levi (“Shazam!,” “Chuck”) that dealt with gun violence. Then came “Due West,” which also stars Palicki and was shot in Alpine, Marfa and Marathon.
“Evan and his wife spend a lot of time out in West Texas, Marfa specifically,” says Janson. “If you’ve ever been out there, you know you just kind of meet people. And one of the inspirations for the story of ‘Due West’ came from a particular woman that they met.”
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This woman turned out not to be the central character in the film but someone who plays a pivotal role.
Janson admits that, as both he and Miller are men, they wanted to be careful in telling a female-centric story. “There’s obviously a limitation in that we’re both men, but at the same time, we’ve both known people over the years who’ve gone through similar things, in different ways that are in t he movie,” he says. “Thankfully, nobody’s gone through exactly what’s happened in the movie…At the same, we’ve been in touch, throughout the whole process, with the women in our lives to make sure that we portray the character in a way that’s not only realistic, but sympathetic.”
No politics
Also, the word “abortion” and the current state of politics in Texas, which effectively banned most abortions in 2022, are never mentioned. “It’s always really important to us when we’re tackling anything that’s kind of an issue movie is to take the politics out of it altogether and focus on the humanity at the center of it,” he says.
The film has been a hit on the festival circuit, racking up award wins at indie-leaning festivals such as the Fort Worth’s Lone Star Film Festival, El Paso Film Festival, Waco Independent Film Festival and California’s Burbank International Film Festival. It even enjoyed a brief theatrical run in Los Angeles and Austin.
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Miller and Janson are now well-known in the Austin community, where Miller still lives, and where Miller’s wife runs the ATX TV Festival. Richard Linklater, who has Houston roots, “has taken Evan under his wing in a mentorship,” Janson says. “Our wonderful editor, Sandra Adair, has edited pretty much every one of Richard Linklater’s films. And whenever the opportunity came up for her to work with us, I was 100 percent onboard because my viewpoint is that anybody who can edit ‘Boyhood’ is welcome to edit my film.”
Miller and Janson recently finished a new script that leans more in a science-fiction direction and are working on another that takes them back to Texas for inspiration. It’s set during the last night of the famous Austin music venue called the Armadillo World Headquarters that closed in 1980.
Sums up Janson, “That’s definitely a Texas thing.”
Speaking of which, he returns to the Houston area frequently, where his parents still live. “If for no other reason than I have to have queso at some point,” he says with a laugh. “It’s a requirement for me.”
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