‘Halloween Kills’ Star Will Patton Reveals Family Member Who Influenced His ‘Outer Range’ Character (Exclusive)

Halloween Kills stars in the new Amazon Prime Video series Outer Range, playing the gruff rancher Wayne Tillerson. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Patton revealed that one of his own family members influenced his performance in the new series. As seen in Outer Range, Wayne is presented as an affluent rough-around-the-edges father and ranch owner who has a penchant for Clamato.

“I had an uncle when I was a kid who drank something like that,” Patton told PopCulture.com via telephone. “He used to smoke cigarettes and sit in this kind of room. It was almost like Wayne’s room and drink. It really seemed like it might be that. So I challenged him and I began to enjoy the Clamato actually after a while, yeah.” When asked if he used any of those memories to help shape the way he played the character, Patton replied, “Absolutely. That was my main starting point, actually.”

Per an official synopsis of the show: “Outer Range centers on Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin), a rancher fighting for his land and family, who discovers an unfathomable mystery at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness. A thrilling fable with hints of wry humor and supernatural mystery, Outer Range examines how we grapple with the unknown. At the onset of the series, the Abbotts are coping with the disappearance of daughter-in-law Rebecca.”

The Abbotts “are pushed further to the brink when the Tillersons (the gaudy owners of the neighboring profit-driven ranch) make a play for their land. An untimely death in the community sets off a chain of tension-filled events, and seemingly small-town, soil-bound troubles come to a head with the arrival of a mysterious black void in the Abbotts’ west pasture. Wild revelations unfold as Royal fights to protect his family; through his eyes, we begin to see how time contains secrets held in the past and unsettling mysteries foreshadowed.”

While Wayne definitely seems like a villainous character on the surface, Patton is careful to remind viewers that people are more complex than just being good or bad. “I think on the page he seems like the villain of the piece, but as you get further into it, there [are] layers there. There’s a lot more than meets the eye in terms of why he’s doing what he’s doing and what’s going on inside of him and what the connection is between [him] and Royal and so on and so forth. Just having to find things inside oneself that are inspiring to work with.”  The first two episodes of Outer Range are now streaming, only on Amazon Prime Video.