Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for Duster Episode 6.
As HBO Max’s new crime drama Duster heads into the back half of its first season, the series continues to unspool its biggest mystery regarding the anonymous threat of Xavier, the mysterious cowboy (J.R. Yenque) from D.C., and how this is somehow all connected to both U.S. President Richard Nixon and Ezra Saxton’s (Keith David) operation in Arizona. Now that Saxton’s getaway driver Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway) has become a confidential informant for newly-minted FBI agent Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson), the two have ramped up their investigation into Sax’s dealings — but with Nina now on the inside working undercover as a Russian translator, the stakes have never been higher. There’s also the fact that both Saxton’s enforcer, Billy (Evan Jones), and Nina’s fellow agent, Grant (Dan Tracy), are serving as obstacles in more ways than one.
Ahead of the premiere of Episode 6, Collider had the opportunity to catch up with Hilson about some of Nina’s biggest and most badass moments this week on Duster. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Hilson reveals the significance of Nina giving her necklace to Awan (Asivak Koostachin), why Royce’s (Benjamin Charles Watson) crush might be something Nina can use to her advantage, how many stunts she wanted to perform herself during Nina and Jim’s Butch Cassidy shootout, what that final hotel moment means between the two leads, and more.
COLLIDER: Is there a secret to a good slow-mo walk? Because you get some really awesome ones this season.
RACHEL HILSON: That’s a question I haven’t gotten. I think that’s more of the camera’s job, luckily. It’s obviously a different frame count. You’ve got to just put your shoulders back and look around a little bit, and feel yourself. But the camera does most of the work there.
Did the costumes help too?
HILSON: Definitely. The costumes and the shoes. I’m given a lot of high-heeled shoes because I’m quite short. I think that always really helps, too. I will also credit the camera, because they usually do a low angle. You’ve just got to look like you mean it when you walk.
Rachel Hilson Explains the Significance of That ‘Duster’ Necklace Moment
“It’s this life-or-death pursuit.”
This week, Nina gives Awan her necklace for safekeeping, which is very touching, but it’s also kind of sobering because it’s really hitting both of them, for the first time, how dangerous this potentially could be for her, going into the lion’s den. How did you want to approach that scene and emphasize the weight of the moment in the look that you two share?
HILSON: Nina is finally getting what she came to Phoenix for. She had this successful meeting, and this is what she’s wanted all along. I think throughout this pursuit, she’s realized the stakes of it. She knows how dangerous this is. There is something that happens in all of our lives, when there is the moment where reality hits, and it sinks in, all of the implications of what this moment means. For Nina, yes, it is quite literally a life-or-death moment that she’s about to embark on. Even though it’s something that she needs, I don’t think she would be able to go on if she wasn’t pursuing this. But still, it’s this life-or-death pursuit.
I think there probably is also something in her partnership with Awan. They’ve developed such a closeness and such a trust, and I think even just seeing him and looking at him and choosing to give this necklace to him, she sees some sort of home in him, and even the possibility that she might not even get to see him again becomes very real, let alone her mom. So, yeah, I think that is a really tender, important moment for her and for them. That is a sobering moment.
As tense as this episode is for your character, one of my favorite moments is when Nina ends up having to ride in the car with the Saxtons, and the Spinners song comes on the radio. How difficult is it not to give in to the temptation to sing along with everybody in a scene like that?
HILSON: I remember the writing in that script. They start singing, and it says, “Nina is suddenly in a car full of criminals as they’re singing.” It’s this moment of these people are very bad, they do very bad things, but they are also human beings that listen to music and have fun, and know the lyrics to all of the songs she knows the lyrics to. Sitting in the front is the person who killed her father, but he is also a human being with a son and a driver, and they do also have fun, I guess. How can she maybe lean into the fact that they are human and sort of distance herself from the fact of who they are for a moment? Which I think she definitely has to ease into over the course of this episode, and I guess over the course of what we’ll see in the next episodes. I think that’s definitely a slow process, despite, again, the stakes being so high. I think sometimes she’s not fully aware of her face, and that is something that she has to remind herself to control a bit.
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David also discusses Sax’s morality, his character’s father-figure relationship with Jim, and more.
Jim and Nina’s Butch Cassidy exchange does culminate in what Royce refers to as Nina’s Pam Grier moment, which I also loved. In talking to some of your co-stars, they’ve tried to do a lot of those stunts themselves. How much of the action did you really want to perform yourself this week?
HILSON: Yes, we all have really amazing stunt people, but I did want to do as much as I could for those scenes. For that sequence, there’s a roll and then there’s the dive, and I did both of them. However, I always had a mat for liability reasons. I wasn’t able to dive straight onto the concrete or roll on the concrete, but I did do all of those. There’s an angle, but it switches so quickly between me and my stunt person. I will say yes, I did do both of those things. I had lots of bruises afterwards. It’s fun stuff. I didn’t think that I would get to do much stunt stuff, at least at this point in my career. Especially someone of my stature, I feel like I’m not always thought of for the action, superhero sort of roles. So, this has been really fun for me, because I come from a dance background, so I like the challenge of stunt choreography. I know Josh [Holloway] went to school for driving. I did not do all of that, but I did what I could.
Something else that becomes clear this week is that Royce is crushing pretty hard on Nina. He makes no secret of the fact that he is into her, and it’s actually kind of cute. But when Billy starts having suspicions and confronts Nina about her identity and the fact that not all the details of her story add up, Royce is the one who steps in and defends her. Is that something that Nina thinks she can use to her advantage while she’s still undercover?
HILSON: Oh, absolutely. I think she picks up on it, and then she tries to feed it, too, because this is another in, another way to get to her goal, and it proves to be quite essential, she realizes. This crush, this affection and affinity that Royce has for Nina, quite literally saves her life one or two times.
Initially, you think Agent Grant is just a racist and all-around jerk, but then it unfolds that he’s part of this bigger conspiracy. How is his starting to poke around in Nina’s investigation going to throw a wrench into things heading towards the finale?
HILSON: Aside from being a racist and a misogynist, and having his own agenda at the FBI, he has this other, even bigger agenda in coexistence with the FBI. So, his interest in Nina, yes, is not purely one of professional disdain or competition or whatever; it is also, for him, life-or-death stakes, as well. We begin to see how coordinated all of this stuff is, and all of the pieces and plants there are that make up this entire web. He ultimately realizes: it’s me or her. So, yeah, the stakes for that grow over the next three episodes. It is a me-or-her situation within the FBI, but for bigger reasons than we initially thought.
Rachel Hilson Wants Viewers To Reach Their Own Conclusions About That Nina/Jim Scene
“It’s open to interpretation.”
After the dust settles from the shootout, Nina’s patching Jim up, and they seem to share a moment. From a certain POV, it could be charged in a certain way. It could just be that the two of them are really finally starting to let their guard down with each other. What’s your read on that look between them?
HILSON: I think I want to leave that up to the audience to decide. I don’t know if can or should speak on that.
Is it open to interpretation?
HILSON: Yeah, it’s open to interpretation. They just went through something pretty intense together. They’ve had a pretty intense and volatile and charged-in-other-ways relationship up until that point, and I think at the end of that day, they just saved each other. You don’t have that with many people, where you save each other’s lives. There is something that comes from that, this energy, this shift that comes from that sort of experience or relationship of literally having one another’s backs in that way. So, yeah, I think that’s up to the audience to decide what they think is the product of that, what they feel is in that moment.
New episodes of Duster premiere Thursdays on HBO Max.