First Look: Michael Winterbottom's Take On The Killer Inside Me

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I'm excited for any new adaptation of the novels of Jim Thompson (who also dabbled in screenwriting, collaborating with Kubrick and Peckinpah) so it stands to reason that I'm excited to see what Michael Winterbottom is doing with his version of The Killer Inside Me. Thompson's book follows small town Texas sheriff Lou Ford, who isn't quite as dumb and grinningly affable as he seems. Murderous impulses lie beneath the lawman's surface. Casey Affleck plays Ford; Kate Hudson plays the schoolteacher that wants him to marry her, and Jessica Alba is the prostitute that Ford keeps on a leash instead of running out of town. Now we've got some pics of the cast in character and a couple of producer interviews from the set.

The Playlist dug up these images (here, here and here) and interviews, which come from locations in Oklahoma. Jim Thompson is an OK native, but the production ended up there because of incentive packages; Oklahoma City is doubling for Fort Worth in scenes where Ford, his Sheriff and the county attorney have to take a beaten girl to a capable hospital. The shots of Affleck and Hudson could come from a number of different places in the story; the photo of Hudson in green likely comes from the end of the film. Bill Pullman, Elias Koteas and Ned Beatty are also in the cast, as is The Mentalist's Simon Baker. They could be playing any combination of the sheriff Ford works for, county attorney Hendricks, local businessman Chester Conway and Rothman, a local politician.

The interviews with Brad Schlei and Andrew Eaton have a few good tidbits, including a few behind the scenes shots. Schlei mentions that Winterbottom rewrote the script (by Joseph Curran) into a really brief burner that clocks in around 86 pages. Thompson's novel isn't a long one, but I don't expect a 90-minute movie. More like one that has a lot of lingering shots of Ford at work, twisting people into little knots. Aside from the fact that Lou Ford is quite a lot like Affleck's previous character Robert Ford, I'm really curious to see where this one goes.