While the film and TV industries demand an endless churn of content for the streaming generation, Jeff Nichols has instead opted for a careful and deliberate pace as a talented auteur. Over the course of six feature films in 17 years, the screenwriter and director has proven a master of capturing human nature with stories that distill epic narratives into singular, unforgettable moments. Take his latest movie, The Bikeriders, when Jodie Comer’s character Kathy climbs onto the back of a motorcycle for the first time with Benny, played by Austin Butler. As she sinks her face into the back of his dusty denim jacket, the scene is simultaneously immediate and timeless.
Though an Arkansas native, Nichols has lived in Central Texas for over 20 years. The Third Coast of filmmaking pioneered by directors like Richard Linklater is a fitting outpost for Nichols, whose work casually dismantles genre tropes and challenges Southern stereotypes. Nichols has devised everything from a coming-of-age story about a teen helping a fugitive in Mud, to a science fiction flick rife with retro trappings in Midnight Special, to a historical drama about an interracial couple in Loving. Yet he has given each movie his fingerprint with slow-burn sensibilities that thrive on compelling characters and the specific worlds they inhabit.
With Mud, he had a hand in launching a whole new era of Matthew McConaughey—what some refer to as the McConaissance. The Bikeriders, an origin story of the Chicago-based Vandals Motorcycle Club, is Nichols’ most commercially successful movie. Using photographer Danny Lyon’s eponymous 1968 book of iconic images and short interviews, Nichols weaves a narrative that centers on romance, friendship, and a youthful freedom synonymous with the American psyche. “Every film is a miracle,” Nichols says. “Every film you get away with something that makes you feel like that.”
Enjoying this article?Texas Highways: You’re more than two decades into your career. What is a recent lesson you’ve learned in filmmaking?
JEFF NICHOLS: You’ve caught me in an interesting place coming off The Bikeriders, which was challenging material to turn into a two-hour narrative film. And now I’m in the midst of adapting these two books by Cormac McCarthy [The Passenger and Stella Maris] that are equally as challenging, if not more challenging. I’m looking forward to being on my own, which is where I was for the first four films—the only person I have to be accountable to is myself in terms of the creative path of the piece.
TH: Do you feel like your tendencies as a filmmaker are fighting against a current?
JN: I think the snake might be eating its own tail. Lately, I kind of doubled, tripled down on the idea of cinema. It’s a real thing, and it carries more value than “content”—whatever it is that’s being put on your TV nonstop. There is something inherently valuable in being able to sit down and get a complete narrative in two hours. I’m a bit of a dinosaur, and so I never left the format. I continue to try to perfect it and do as good of a job as I possibly can in that structure.
TH: What places in Texas are important for you?
JN: I’ve got stories from every corner. Going to shows at John T. Floore’s in Helotes, beach trips to Port A, going up to Marfa and staying at El Cosmico, or going up to the Panhandle to visit the creators of Hank the Cowdog to work on a podcast. The drive up Interstate 30 from Dallas to Texarkana I’ve made so many times, back into Arkansas. My greatest East Texas connection would be Palestine. That’s where I drove out to meet Tye Sheridan, the boy from Mud, for the first time. I’ve seen every corner of this state, and it always impresses me.
TH: You’ve been in Texas for a while now, but what were some of your first impressions when you moved here?
JN: What the water looked like. It might be a strange answer, but coming from Arkansas, all of our rivers and lakes, they’re pretty muddy. There’s something about the water that comes up through the aquifer. It’s true for Barton Springs; it’s true for the Blanco River. I remember going out to Hamilton Pool for the first time and being shocked. It looked like it was from Jurassic Park and part of another much older world.
TH: There are a couple of huge studios opening near Austin, and more people have made movies in Texas recently. Do you think the state plays a key role in the future of film?
JN: In terms of the diversity of people, the interesting landscapes, and the history—you’re always going to have stories coming out of here. And as long as you have stories coming out of here, you’re going to have films coming out of here.
TH: Your movies have a strong sense of place. Is there an Austin-centric story you have in mind?
JN: At some point I definitely want to tell a Texas story. The closest thing I have to an Austin story would be about my middle brother. He and I have been kicking around an idea—this would be hilarious—for a procedural television series about his early days of becoming a criminal defense attorney. He has some great stories, and that’s very Austin because that’s where he was based. Austin’s such a tricky place. It changes so much.
TH: What was different about your process with making The Bikeriders?
JN: Every project has a unique challenge. For this one, it was the
motorcycles—how to deal with them, how to source them, how to use them, how to photograph them in a cinematic way that felt like it was telling a story. I’ve never dealt with this many characters before. I wanted to give each of them enough space to become flesh-and-blood characters in the film.
TH: How did you approach turning still snapshots of people into a narrative?
JN: Storytelling is fascinating because you really don’t ever feel like you have your hands totally around it. The Bikeriders was one I really had to work on because it was a book of photographs and a book of interviews. To represent Danny Lyon’s book, you really need multiple characters giving their view on life, which means giving attention to the actors. But it’s also about making sure you have enough shots to tell the story in this big way, so it feels like you have the point of view of the group as opposed to just one character.
TH: Why is a photograph so powerful?
JN: For me, they are a form of time travel—by definition. Anytime you capture a memory, every time you click a camera, it’s of the past. As a person who’s interested in history and stories, which essentially are memories, that’s what photographs are.
TH: There’s a line in The Bikeriders where Tom Hardy says, “You can give everything you got to a thing—you can give it all you got—and it’s still just gonna do what it’s gonna do.” Do you feel that way about filmmaking?
JN: Yeah, 100%. I think it is a truism, and it’s one of the few lines that I wrote. We put all our time into these things and then the world gets to do what they want with them. And I think that could certainly be applied to more than just filmmaking, but as a filmmaker, yes, it’s pretty much on the nose.
TH: After your most commercially successful film, do you feel like you’ve turned a corner as a filmmaker?
JN: I don’t know if I can answer that, but I can answer my reaction to it—which is to just double down on whatever I have going on in my own head. You’re really looking for an opinion of the world, how it works, how it operates, and how you feel about that. And you’re trying to put that into the stories.
