'Mayor of Kingstown' Star Hugh Dillon Talks About the Rallying Cry of Season 3
If you think union strikes, losing two mainstay characters and the star of the show almost dying would slow down ‘Mayor of Kingstown’, think again. Hugh Dillon speaks with FilmSpeak about a third season that had to fight for survival.
This article contains spoilers for Mayor of Kingstown seasons 1 & 2.
Knowing the co-creator of ‘Mayor of Kingstown’, Hugh Dillon, is to almost know the embodiment of the show itself. Based on his hometown of Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Dillon is arguably one of the most blue-collar creators in television today. (As blue-collar as you can be if you also happen to be a multi-platinum musical artist, Gemini winning, and Screen Actors Guild nominated actor). For those of us who even spent a little time in Kingston, there is the recognition of a palpable hardworking optimism that is a part of the town. Equal parts college purlieu, prison hub and thriving artistic scene, Kingston has given Canada some of our greatest poets and musical artists, and what defines all of them is that steadfast resolve. People from Kingston put in the work.
If you take that workmanship and couple it with one of the busiest creators in television this century, and the creative duo of Hugh Dillon and Taylor Sheridan seem like nothing could stop them… even though there are forces who might try.
Audiences have been flocking to one of the latest additions to the Sheridan television catalog, critics have been a bit harsh on ‘Mayor’ in its first two seasons. Yet it has survived. Season 2 saw the death of Aidan Gillen’s sophomore go at a whispering antagonist, as well as the loss of Oscar winner Diane Wiest’s matriarch. Yet here it is, season 3. It had to ensure two major Hollywood strikes, which struck a blow to other Sheridan properties. Not a problem. Finally, star of the show, Jeremy Renner suffered a near fatal accident in January of 2023, yet even after 30 broken bones, struggling to even breath and mobility issues, the show must, and did, go on.
Dillon recently spoke with FilmSpeak on the astonishing resilience of the cast, crew and the show in general. “So much of it [this season] was just rally around Jeremy Renner. Taylor had called me after season two, and after the accident, and we decided, we're going to make Jeremy the priority” Dillon reveals. “The hockey term is he’s ‘our Gretzky’, we're all there to support our lead. We're all there to pass him the puck and make sure that we clear the way so that he can do his job. As a person, he's just a sweetheart and he's our friend, so you want to make him feel confident and successful, especially coming back with an injury like this”.
It’s amazing to think that neither man has anything to prove to audiences, critics, or the world of television at all at this point, but there it is, that Kingstown (or Kingston) pride. Dillon recalls a visit with Renner that pretty much made season 3 a certainty. “I had gone to see him, and spoke to his mother. He was still in a wheelchair, his mom was looking after him and so I was promising her that we would look after him, trying to convince everyone it would work out, but I could already see he wanted to do the show. I knew, just looking in his eyes.”
In a sense, Renner’s resolve inspired Dillon’s already hardened resolve, and as Dillon tells it, gave season three even more intensity. “I wanted him to see the script as he was recovering. I wanted him to be inspired, and to have that take the place of other thoughts as he's trying to recover. And because of that, the show really took on another level of meaning and intensity.” Dillon made several promises during that meeting, and not just to Renner’s mother. “I said to him, ‘we're gonna get to May, and you're gonna say you did it’ and we just passed that milestone last week”.
Those who don’t know Dillon or the ‘mean-streets’ of Kingston might simply see the hockey metaphors and well mannered Canadian smile that occasionally materializes on Dillon’s face and think that it’s all an act. Yet the results speak for themselves. Then again, perhaps it is a learned trait, more akin to nurture than nature.
When Dillon was growing up, he often spoke of the amazing interdisciplinary artistic youth he had. We’ve already covered the insane musical meca that Kingston turned out to be, spawning Canadian icons like The Tragically Hip, David Usher, and Dillon’s own band, The Headstones, but it was his dramatic arts teachers in high school who really inspired him. So much so, that Dillon used to steal Queen’s university jackets to sneak into campus screenings. There, he continued his streetwise education with early Scorsese, and William Friedkin films.
“My earliest idea of cinema was formed by ‘Mean Streets’ specifically and ‘The French Connection’. I for whatever reason, love the way it was filmed, love the the characterization, love the dialogue and there was just something so oddly real and dangerous and funny that I related to.” Dillon confesses that those films really flavored his later work. “‘Mayor’ certainly has those qualities. Taylor Sheridan likes Peckinpah, we share a love for those 70s classics, and it can't help but bleed into our own work”.
‘Bleed’ might be the most appropriate word in this entire interview. Dillon, Renner and the entire cast and crew have given literal blood, sweat and tears to this production, and against all odds have been able to create three seasons of a show that by all accounts could possibly be just another victim of the mean streets of television. It should come as no surprise, however, that Dillon doesn’t see any signs of slowing down.
“Taylor says he's got the finale for season seven. So that's what I'm gunning for.”