Sterlin Harjo receives the ArtNow 2023 Focus Award
Sterlin Harjo talks about using memories from his life in the creation of Reservation Dogs and his life in Oklahoma
Sterlin Harjo is bringing four-time Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke back to Oklahoma for a high-profile new project.
Deadline reports that FX has given a pilot order to “The Sensitive Kind,” a drama that will star and be executive produced by Hawke and created and executive produced by Harjo.
Harjo previously brought Hawke to his home state to work on “Reservation Dogs,” the trailblazing made-in-Oklahoma FX series on which Harjo worked as co-creator, executive producer and showrunner.
During the celebrated coming-of-age series’ third and final season, Hawke made an impression in his guest-starring turn as Rick Miller, the father whom prospective college student Elora Danan (Devery Jacobs) meets for the first time. One of the main characters of “Reservation Dogs,” Elora Danan has grown up without her father, but tracks him down so that she can apply for financial aid.
Titled “Elora’s Dad,” the penultimate of “Reservation Dogs” was written by Jacobs and directed by Harjo.
‘He loved Tulsa’: Sterlin Harjo teases new project with Ethan Hawke during OKC event
An acclaimed Tulsa-based producer, writer and director, Harjo teased his reunion project with Hawke at an event last month at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, where the “Reservation Dogs” showrunner was presented with the “ArtNow 2023” Focus Award.
“What is happening next: I’m gonna say this, even though they haven’t told me for sure. I’m on the half yard line right now for a TV show starring Ethan Hawke that will be shot in Tulsa. So, I’m very excited about that,” Harjo said at the Jan. 11 OKC event.
“He’s great. He loved Tulsa. … I haven’t brought him to Oklahoma City yet — sorry.”
“The Sensitive Kind” sounds like a much different project for the pair. Deadline describes it as “a Tulsa noir about a guy (Hawke) who knows too much.”
“What an exciting time to be in this industry in Oklahoma right now. The Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts & Culture is thrilled for Sterlin Harjo. What he has done for film and television in our state, our region and for Native storytelling thus far is nothing short of amazing,” said Meg Gould, executive director of Tulsa FMAC, in an email to The Oklahoman.
“We can’t wait to see how this project progresses, but I can say with certainty, it just added fuel to the momentum shared by so much talent across the state.”
The new project falls under the overall deal Harjo signed in 2021 with FX. Harjo is working as the pilot’s writer and director, while he and Hawke are executive producing with Garrett Basch, also an executive producer on “Reservation Dogs” and another acclaimed FX series, “What We Do in the Shadows.”
The pilot order for “The Sensitive Kind” comes as FX is trying to replace several of its hit shows that are ending, including “Reservation Dogs,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Archer” and more.
“We have glaring needs for new dramas and comedies, starting in 2025,” John Landgraf, chairman of FX Content and FX Productions, told Deadline in a recent interview. “We have critical needs, but we have to fill them with things that are worth being successors to the past 20 years of shows that we just made.”
‘Reservation Dogs’ showrunner planning a slew of projects after acclaimed series’ end
“Reservation Dogs” — co-created and executive produced by Taika Waititi, an Oscar-winning New Zealand moviemaker who is of Maori ancestry, and Harjo, a longtime independent filmmaker who is Seminole and Muscogee — earned widespread critical acclaim and blazed new trails for Indigenous storytelling during its three-season run on Hulu.
Since the FX series’ finale bowed in September, speculation has swirled about what Harjo will do next, and at last month’s OKC event, he talked about a slew of planned projects in addition to his Hawke reunion.
Harjo said he is working with “Reservation Dogs” writer-director Danis Goulet on adaptating for FX the popular Canadian podcast “Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s” as a limited series, writing a Jim Thorpe script based on the book by Dave Maraniss called “Path Lit by Lightning” and executive producing a documentary about fellow Oklahoman and former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.
“I’m in development to do a spin-off of this ‘Spider-Verse’ thing with this Native character that’s pretty cool. … There’s also an animation that I have that is a show that is based on a very, very important old Native film, but we’re turning it into an animation and book,” Harjo said.
“Then, I think, oh, two documentaries — this is all in a year; I don’t know how I’m gonna do it all, but I’m gonna hire a lot of people — a Jesse Ed Davis documentary about the guitar player and a documentary on Richard Oakes, who was the activist that spearheaded the takeover of Alcatraz and died in very suspicious circumstances.”
