Wild hogs are tearing up the lawn at the San Saba ranch where Tommy Lee Jones grew up, leaving the Texas turf looking like a mosaic of grass and dirt.
Jones told lanacion.com.ar that he dislikes physical barriers and is only reluctantly considering a fence to keep the animals away.
Built as a stone fort in 1856 when Sam Houston was still alive, the limestone structure sits on more than 6,000 acres in the Texas Hill Country. Dawn Laurel Jones, his wife of 25 years, told lanacion.com.ar that the remote property provides a necessary retreat from the public demands of the entertainment industry.
“It is very alienating for him to see himself commodified that way, even in some of the most private moments that he can’t even process without being under a microscope,” Dawn Laurel Jones told lanacion.com.ar.
Now aged 80, Jones spends his time managing his property and returning to characters rooted in the rugged rural landscapes of his youth. His latest role places him in Tulsa, Oklahoma, starring alongside Ethan Hawke in the FX series The Lowdown, which streams on Disney+ in Argentina.
Series premiere opens with Paris, Texas homage
Created by Sterlin Harjo, The Lowdown features Hawke as a morally flexible journalist who goes by the title of “truthstorian.” Jones plays Lee Raybon, the estranged father of Hawke’s character, in the actor’s first television role since directing and starring in the 1995 TV movie Good Old Boys.
The series premiere opens with an homage to Wim Wenders’ film Paris, Texas, showing the older Raybon wandering through an arid landscape in a suit and a red cap bearing a biblical inscription rather than a political slogan. Harjo told lanacion.com.ar that he did not have a specific actor in mind when writing the part until Jones’s representative expressed interest.
“I like his point of view, his style,” Jones told lanacion.com.ar regarding the creator.
Harjo and Jones eventually met in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to discuss the production.
Macon Blair, a co-star in the series, told lanacion.com.ar that the veteran actor possesses a dry, deadpan sense of humor that is fundamentally different from typical comedic performances.
“He is hilarious,” Blair told lanacion.com.ar. “The thing is, he never acts looking for a laugh. He is so deadpan and so dry it sounds thermonuclear.”
Privacy and polo in Texas
Jones maintains a strict boundary between his public career and his private life, declining to publicly discuss personal matters. When asked about recent political shifts in Texas, Jones told lanacion.com.ar that people had expressed themselves clearly and he had nothing to add.
Away from the camera, Jones and his wife run a polo operation on their San Saba property, maintaining two fields and 25 horses. Dawn Laurel Jones told lanacion.com.ar that they actively breed polo ponies using frozen semen from the late stallion Open Chimento.
“We hope to have two foals walking on the earth by May of next year,” Dawn Laurel Jones told lanacion.com.ar.
While Dawn Laurel Jones continues to compete in polo matches, her husband no longer plays.
The actor’s next professional commitment involves traveling to Australia to film Outside Man alongside Ice Cube, after which he plans to return to his Texas ranch.
“I knew God loved me,” Jones told lanacion.com.ar, “because he put me in this land called Texas.”