‘Billy the Kid’ Season 3 Interview: Tom Blyth and Daniel Webber

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Tom Blyth and Daniel Webber about their work on season three of ‘Billy the Kid’, what fans can expect from the new season, Jesse’s relationship with Billy, Billy’s final showdown with Pat Garrett, and what it was like for them shooting the final season of the show.

Related Article: Tom Blyth Talks ‘Billy the Kid’ Season 2 Part 2 and Making a Western

Tom Blyth stars in ‘Billy the Kid’ season 3. Photo: MGM+.

Moviefone: To begin with, Tom, can you talk about where we left Billy at the end of season 2 and where we find him at the beginning of season 3?

Tom Blyth: Season two ends in the snow. It’s winter and Billy’s been sprung out of jail by his comrades, by his gang in a pretty dramatic escape with snow and fire and bullets. Then, season three, he’s very much on the run. He’s really an outlaw now. There’s no question about it. He’s living in the woods with his gang and essentially, I describe him this season as a Che Guevara kind of character. He’s almost a guerrilla warfare hero. He’s taking the fight to them, but he’s got to do it in such a way that he’s the resistance movement against this corrupt government in New Mexico, essentially, which is cool.

MF: Daniel, can you talk about where we find Jesse at the beginning of the new season?

Daniel Webber: So, Jesse’s dealing with the consequences and the aftermath of the war. I think on a personal level, he’s gotten essentially everything he wanted. He got power. He got his name recognition. He got money and status after the war, but he’s dealing with the consequences and essentially the blood on his hands. I think that there’s a certain guilt that he’s not even conscious of at this point, but there’s an instinct that he’s on the wrong path and there’s a transformation that is essentially starting very early on in the season. This season, so much of him is searching and we really get to see the underbelly of Jesse. We get to see the man. We’ve put a bit more flesh on him. I said before that we’re pulling the mask away. We’re seeing the cracks in the mask this season. Not just the bravado. Not just the swagger. Not just the dangerous, infamous Jesse Evans. We see who the man is next to the myth and carrying the weight of Billy’s myth in a sense this season. There’s a recklessness, I would say, to Billy the Kid. A wildness to Billy the Kid this season, which I don’t think we saw as much. I think he’s more the Billy the Kid that you might’ve heard from stories than what we’ve seen in the past and yeah, I get to be the guy who says, “No. Don’t do that.”

Tom Blyth stars in ‘Billy the Kid’ season 3. Photo: MGM+.

MF: Daniel, can you talk about Jesse and Billy’s friendship, where it went wrong, and will we see them have closure with that relationship before the end of the series?

DW: You’ll have to just wait and see. Historically, what I’ve loved about telling this story is it is in three parts, this relationship where they are friends, and he is introduced into the outlaw life in season one and being an outlaw and joining the Seven Rivers Gang. That’s one part of history. The second part is the rivalry they had during the Lincoln County War when they got split on opposite sides. Then the final part that I’d always looked to from the start was that Jesse Evans wrote to Billy the Kid when he was put in prison after he was supposed to have this bitter feud with this man. He’s a vowed enemy, so to speak. The one person he writes to was Billy the Kid to come break him out of prison. That really told me a lot about what the true feelings of the relationship really are and the depth of that brotherhood. So, I always saw this, especially this season, as a reluctant relationship, reluctant brotherhood, but they’re mirrors for each other. He’s essentially the shadow half of Billy. He’s the wild, reckless, dangerous part and he’s what Billy could become. I think this season, their roles are almost reversing, where Billy is becoming a little bit more reckless, a little bit wilder. This season, we see Jesse, like I said, dealing with the consequences of the violence that he’s already acted out and, in some ways, trying to pull him back, trying to be the counterpoint, trying to survive when he is going into this Che Guevara revolutionary mode, trying to be the voice of reason. He’s probably the one person in the gang who can get through to Billy.

MF: Tom, obviously we know from history how Billy’s story ends at the hands of Pat Garret. Can fans of the series expect a historically accurate ending or did you have the freedom to include some surprises?

TB: I think we are playing real people, but so much about them is lost in myth and so much of the gaps are filled in throughout history by people who either weren’t there or were there but had an agenda. Pat Garrett wrote the book that most people take the history from, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to think that maybe that telling of history is probably a little bit biased or skewed towards Pat’s perspective or agenda. So, we use that logic to let us not off the hook but let us use our imagination a bit more and think, well, if other people have taken the facts and tried to fill in the gaps, we should do the same thing. So, Michael Hirst, the creator of the show, is good at essentially going, “Here are the things we know happened. Let’s fill in the gaps with our imagination throughout and try and tell the full picture from what we know.” In that, we also get to see a version of Billy that we haven’t before. We get to see some things that may or may not have happened, we just don’t know. So, without giving too much away, to answer your question, I would say there’s a lot of fact in there, a lot of history and there’s a lot of exciting stuff we haven’t seen before.

Alex Roe stars in ‘Billy the Kid’ season 3. Photo: MGM+.

MF: Tom, was it bittersweet shooting season 3 knowing that it would be the final season and the last time you would play this character?

TB: Yeah. It’s super bittersweet. I’ve loved this show. I love the people I work with. We’re like a family. We’ve shot it over the past four years, I think. Four years and it has felt like going back home every time. Every time we’re lucky enough to get another season, and I honestly think three seasons is perfect. It was always what Michael Hirst was hoping to get, was three seasons. He had a real clear image in his mind of the trajectory of Billy, Jesse, Dulcinea and Pat’s stories and I think we get to wrap it up in a concise, beautiful way and it’s exciting. It’s exciting to see it through. It felt like, I would imagine ‘Game of Thrones’ feels making, where every time you get a script, you go, “What? No. What?” I won’t say why or who, but characters that we start to fall in love with having moments that are real surprises. Michael really took it there this season. Just as you fall in love with someone, they’re ripped away in a dramatic way, but it makes for entertaining television.

MF: Finally, Daniel, what was your experience like shooting the final season knowing that this was the end?

DW: I don’t know if it was because we knew it was finishing, but I think there’s so many characters this season who were so integral last season that get killed and so we were saying goodbye the whole time. There are some real stakes to this season. Every episode has somebody who we love on a personal level, but also story-wise that is gone. So, it felt like, personally, I was grasping to hold onto this thing. Lots of twists and turns.

Tom Blyth stars in ‘Billy the Kid’ season 3. Photo: MGM+.

What is the plot of ‘Billy the Kid’ season 3?

Following the end of the Lincoln County War, as both Billy the Kid (Tom Blyth) and Sheriff Pat Garrett (Alex Roe) have important issues to resolve – there is a reckoning to come. Billy is still at large, and Garrett is out to capture him, dead or alive. And with a bounty on his head, Billy can quit altogether and pursue a future with Dulcinea (Nuria Vega), the love of his life. But he has unfinished business with Garrett, who has betrayed him, and decides to stay. Meanwhile Jesse Evans (Daniel Webber), Billy’s longtime friend, rival, and enemy, also remains in Lincoln, searching for a newfound purpose and perhaps atonement for his sins. As the saga ends, Billy will fight like hell to try to finally find the justice that has long eluded him, even if it means he’ll die trying.

Who is in the cast of ‘Billy the Kid’ season 3?

‘Billy the Kid’ season 3 premieres on MGM+ September 28th.

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