Robert Taylor won the hearts of western fans starring in Longmire — now he’s back in Netflix’s Territory as an elite cattle rancher.
Robert Taylor is on Zoom from Santa Fe, New Mexico, relaxed and unfiltered, kicking back with an ice-cold bottle of Modelo within easy reach and a wealth of stories — many, if not most, with self-deprecating punchlines — to tell.
“I don’t spend too much time immersed in the business,” he says, nonchalantly explaining the sporadic stretches when he’s out of the public eye. “People always say, ‘Oh, you never do any publicity.’ And I say, ‘Well, nobody ever asks me.’ Nobody. I mean, except for my favorite magazine, which I love, which I’ve been on the cover of twice already.”
Flattery will get you everywhere, sir. But it’s true: Taylor has previously been a C&I cover star twice before now, for stories tied to Longmire, the highly addictive neo-Western TV drama based on Craig Johnson’s series of crime novels about Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire. For six seasons across A&E and Netflix, the Australian-born actor put his indelible stamp on Johnson’s character, authoritatively playing the formidable lawman with a perfect-pitch mix of moral gravity, wry humor, aching vulnerability and, whenever push comes to shove, immutable badassery.
And now he’s back on our cover again for Territory, the Netflix series premiering October 24 in which he plays a rather more irascible character: Colin Lawson, the defiantly tradition-bound owner of the world’s largest cattle ranch, Marianne Station, an Australian spread described in the premiere episode as “the size of Belgium.”
In addition to C&I’s November/December 2024 issue, Robert Taylor has also graced C&I’s October 2017 cover and August/September 2013 cover.
There’s more than a passing resemblance between Colin and Yellowstone’s John Dutton. Both men share an indefatigable determination to maintain control, by any means necessary, over land that has been in their family for generations. But there’s also a touch of King Lear to Colin’s concern that he may be lacking a suitable heir to his legacy.
“I have a hopeless alcoholic for a son,” he admits to one of his very few confidants, “a daughter-in-law whose family has been stealing my cattle for generations, a dropout granddaughter — and a runaway grandson who hates us all.”
“Typical family, I guess,” Taylor wisecracks when reminded about that choice bit of dialogue. “Yeah, I enjoyed saying it. It was a good moment with the other actor, and pretty much sums up the show. I mean, we could have just shot that scene, and then all of us could have left, really. Would’ve been a lot easier.”
But seriously, folks: Taylor is first among equals in an exceptional ensemble cast that also includes Anna Torv (The Last of Us) as Emily Lawson, the daughter-in-law with ties to her Indigenous roots; Philippa Northeast as Susie Lawson, the granddaughter who would rather herd cattle than attend college; Sam Corlett as Marshall Lawson, the grandson forced to reconsider his decision to turn his back on his heritage; and Joe Pickett star Michael Dorman as Graham Lawson, the unreliable son whose shaky grip on sobriety leads to rash decisions and bitter disappointments.
“Yeah,” Taylor says, “some people will be tuning in and saying, ‘Oh, look! Walt Longmire is really Joe Pickett’s father! Wow!”
Taylor stars as patriarch of the Lawson family, played in part by Anna Torv, Philippa Northeast, and Michael Dorman.
Hard-Earned Roles And Hard Times
Of course, viewers might have a similar reaction when they see Taylor in another upcoming show. For NCIS: Origins (a prequel to the long-running NCIS), premiering October 14 on CBS, he’s been cast as Jackson Gibbs, the father of a younger Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Austin Stowell), the character originally played in the mothership series by Mark Harmon.
“That’s right, another father,” Taylor says. “A lot of people worry about playing the dad or the mom. But who gives a toss? You’re working, so whatever. And I’m enjoying the role.” Set 35 years or so before the original NCIS, Origins focuses on Leroy’s early career with the then-nascent NCIS team. “I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say Leroy’s recently widowed, and has lost his son. And I’m helping Leroy deal with all that.
“Of course, as you might expect of a man of that generation and that time, Jackson’s probably not very well-equipped to help his son navigate through such a terrible personal tragedy on so many levels. It’s just difficult, unimaginable. And I’m enjoying doing that a lot.
“And it’s good,” he adds with a chuckle, “because I’m not working all the time, which is great. A little here, a little there. A little here, a little there.”
Territory was filmed exclusively in Australia, with many of the sets constructed within Tipperary Station, a real-life cattle station in the Northern Territory.
Certainly not as arduous as jobs the 61-year-old Taylor held before setting out on his acting career. During his youth in Western Australia, he worked as a miner while still in high school. Later, he landed gigs as a lifeguard — and a bouncer. But don’t get the wrong idea: It wasn’t like he was emulating Patrick Swayze in Road House. “Movie fighting is not, to me, like real-life fighting, which is usually one or two punches and then it’s all over. Yeah, we used to get that every weekend where I worked. It was just being idiots, being drunks, and looking for trouble.”
And then there was the time he toiled on an oil rig in the Indian Ocean. He had a serious brush with death when his transport ship collided with another off the west coast of Australia, an accident that left him with a broken arm and a few fractured ribs.
But he made the most of his recovery period: While hospitalized, he saw a newspaper advertisement for auditions at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in Perth.
“Oh, that really happened, dude,” Taylor says, pre-emptively tamping down any skepticism about what may sound like a Cinderella story. “I’d never done a damn thing like that in my life.”
Really, dude?
“Well, I guess I’d had an interest, but I’d never even met anybody with an interesting haircut at that stage. I didn’t move in those circles. I was working at sea. I was offshore for a long time, all over the planet. Mind you, I didn’t want to stick at that forever. It was just something to do for an adventure, for fun.
“But yeah, that’s a true story. I just read that ad in the paper, and it said, ‘Auditions.’ And I thought, Yeah, maybe I’ll be a movie star.
Before pursuing an acting career, Taylor was a miner, a lifeguard, and a bouncer, and worked on an offshore oil rig in Australia.
“It was funny. Back when I was roughnecking on the rig, there’d be me and a couple of guys. Jim Toohey and another guy, a Canadian — we used to call him Dammit. One of us would ask, ‘Hey, man, what do you want to be when you grow up?’ And Jimmy would say, ‘Oh, I’m going to be a gigolo.’ And there he was, covered in grease and oil and drilling mud and sweat. ‘What about you, Dammit?’ ‘Oh, I’m going to be a rock and roll star.’”
And when the question was posed to Taylor? “I said, ‘I think I’ll be a movie star. Or a race car driver.’ There we were, the lowest of the low. We were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, just pulling drill pipe, and just not worth a damn, really. But I said, ‘Maybe I’ll be a movie star.’ So they started calling me ‘Throb’ — as in heartthrob — on the rig and on the ship.”
Laughing at the memory, Taylor adds: “I just wonder where the guys are now, what they’re doing. I want to say, ‘Look, dudes, I did it. I’m here, man.’ I mean, I’m not a big star, but I’m making a living.”
The Road Led To Longmire
No one was more surprised than Taylor when he actually did pass the audition and wound up graduating from WAAPA in 1988. One year later, he passed another audition and was cast in his first major role as a regular in the popular Aussie soap opera Home and Away. One thing led to another, one TV gig led to another, and he eventually made his American movie breakthrough as one of the Agents who made life miserable for Keanu Reeves’ computer-hacking Neo in The Matrix (1999).
“Keanu was a lot of fun to work with,” Taylor recalls “And he’s a great human being. I mean, you hear all these stories and you read this stuff about what he does for other people — and it’s just great that he’s in the world, really. We’re lucky to have him.”
Taylor appeared in several other films — including two thrillers, Coffin Rock (2009) and What Lola Wants (2015), produced by his wife, Ayisha Davies — but he made his biggest impact when he passed yet another fateful audition for the career-defining role of Walt Longmire.
Robert Taylor starred in Longmire alongside fellow C&I cover star Lou Diamond Phillips.
Specifically, he sent the Longmire producers an audition tape he shot back home in Australia. “It wasn’t unusual for me to do something like that, because I’m in the middle of nowhere,” Taylor says. “I just went over to a buddy’s place and put down a couple of scenes.”
Months later, he got the call: Could he be in LA “tomorrow” for an in-person audition? Taylor responded that it would take him two days — because, after all, he was in Australia — but sure, he was game. And excited.
“It was at the old Warners lot in Hollywood somewhere,” Taylor says. “It was like a film set, and it had lights. I did some scenes, and at the end of it, I just felt like I was flying. I felt like it was an out-of-body experience.
Robert Taylor scored the role of Walt Longmire after submitting a self-tape he shot at home in Australia.
“And then the scenes ended and it was quiet, except for people sobbing. I could hear people sobbing. And then all the producers were just kind of looking at me awkwardly, and they said, ‘Hey, someone will drive you back to your hotel.’ I said, ‘No, I think I’ll walk.’
“So I walked, and I went by this old Thai restaurant I used to go to in Hollywood, years ago. I walked to the hotel and I thought, ‘You could not have done any better, dude. Anything else that happens, doesn’t matter. You left it all on the field, every little bit of it.’ And then I got the job.”
“As soon as Robert walked through the door,” executive producer Hunt Baldwin told C&I back in 2012, “we could see that he’d really, really embody [Walt Longmire]. Some of it, I admit, is really superficial. I mean, finally, here was a guy who walked into the room who was just a big bear of a man, with this deep subwoofer of a voice. His physical presence alone told us, ‘OK, this guy’s in the ballpark.’
“But once he began to read the scenes, he caught on to the character’s soulfulness and quiet humor. One of the key things we found so hard to find for someone playing Walt was humility. And Robert is not a guy who comes in with a lot of swagger.”
As opposed to, say, Colin Lawson of Territory. What was the toughest nut for Taylor to crack while trying to get into that character?
Territory Production Designer Matt Putland and his team used local materials, hunting mementos, and old family photos dating back to the 1880’s to create the sets for the fictional Marianne Station, the crown jewel in the Lawson family cattle empire.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, with a casualness you can’t help thinking is more apparent than real. “I just read [the scripts] and said the words. I try not to think about these things too much. I used to when I was a young actor. But now I think you just say it and mean it and believe it, and get out of the way of it. Just keep it simple and distilled and quiet. You just be in the moment.
“I know: Some actors turn themselves inside out, trying to figure a way to do it, rather than just doing it. I just do it. So I read it. That was the guy, so, OK, I just did it.”
But surely there’s more to the process than that, right? Wrong.
“The older I get, the less invested I become in trying to figure ways into things. I just step into it. I don’t think about it too much. Everybody’s got their way of working, and you meet all kinds. I try to go to work and just do it, say the words, and then be on about my business. Hopefully, I get paid and take care of my family.
“And if the wife leaves me a few bucks for a couple of cold beers, I’m happy, man.”
Robert Taylor’s six-part series Territory hits Netflix on October 24.
The Longmire Literary Legacy
Before Robert Taylor donned the hat and boots on TV as Walt Longmire, his character lived for years in literary lore, thanks to Wyoming writer Craig Johnson. We’ve featured Johnson prominently in years past — he even wrote a Wyoming travel guide for us called “The Longmire Loop.” So we’re thrilled that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the first Longmire book, The Cold Dish.
Stay tuned for C&I’s celebration of Johnson’s Longmire legacy (more than 20 books and novellas) and his new novella, Tooth and Claw.
From our November/December 2024 issue.
PHOTOGRAPHY: (Territory images) courtesy Netflix/Tony Mott; (Longmire images) courtesy Netflix