It’s a lowdown saga of pain, persistence and Tulsa

In old movies and TV shows, we saw journalists like Woodward and Bernstein, Lou Grant and Murphy Brown, Edward R. Murrow and maybe Clark Kent.
Some were fictional, some weren’t. Most were unscarred; they had thriving news organizations backing them.
And now? Meet Lee Raybon (the central figure in the poster here), the jey character in “The Lowdown,” which debuts at 9 and 10:30 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 23) on FX. He’s battered, bruised and broke; he works free-lance, with no employer to shield him.
“I think that’s all we have left, you know?” writer-director-producer Sterlin Harjo said in a Zoom press conference. “We have citizen journalists.”
Well, it’s not all we have. The TV news divisions and most of the newspapers are still around. But they have smaller audiences, in a world that abounds with choices and distractions.
That leaves guys like Lee (played by Ethan Hawke), trying to fill in the holes. Amid all the wild twists and raucous action, Hawke said, the show takes a serious look at “what the role of journalism is and the way we tell our community stories …. It just couldn’t be more important.”
And it partly reflect a real-life story.
Lee Roy Chapman was a Tulsa man who managed an old-books store, assembled historic documents and wrote articles. His 2011 story (in a small Tulsa magazine) showed the relationship between one of the city’s founders and the 1921 massacre that destroyed a prospering Black community.
As a self-propelled journalist, Chapman fit a Tulsa that’s still ripe for tough, blue-collar tales — from “Tulsa King” to “The Outsiders” to “The Lowdown.”
Harjo calls this “Tulsa noir,” with the city as an ideal setting. “It has the right amount of grit, the right amount of history, the right amount of secrets …. There’s a longstanding need for the truth in a place like Oklahoma.”
And despite any flaws, Harjo seems to love the place. “Tulsa’s a great community,” he said. “There are so many great artists and musicians.”
Jeanne Tripplehorn, who plays an enigmatic widow in “Lowdown,” echoes that. In Tulsa, she was a rock-radio disc jockey and an actress in community theater, professional theater and, she said, on “these local TV shows that were just off the hook, they were so crazy.”
She grew up there; Harjo didn’t, but he moved to Tulsa years ago.
Harjo, 45, grew up in Holdenville, an Oklahoma city of 6,000. He’s a member of the Seminole nation, with some Muscogee roots.
“I had a really big family and community of people who helped me up and taught me things and guided me through life …. I’m a person who doesn’t exist without the community of artists and elders and storytellers,” he said.
One boost was from Robert Redford’s Sundance organization. Harjoe had a Sundance fellowship; his first three films debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.
What drew the most attention, however, was FX’s “Reservation Dogs,” which he produced and co-wrote. Sometimes funny (drawing an Emmy nomination for best comedy) it also had deeply serious moments.
One of the most serious was the second-to-last episode, with Alora meeting the white father who wasn’t part of her life. Harjo cast Hawke, who’d been a friend since an accidental meeting at an airport. It was “such a dream to direct Ethan and Devery Jacobs in this sort of two-hander episode,” he said. “And we just had such a good time.”
Then he resurrected a project he’d been considering for years. In it, the fictional Lee has an old-books store and writes for Tulsa periodicals — one ragged, another sleazy. He was already investigating a local mogul (Kyle MacLachlan); that expands after the death of the man’s prodigal brother.
This is tricky turf, but Lee persists. “I’m always drawn to people who really do want to follow their dreams …. There’s a price to be paid,” Hawke said.
He’s seen that himself in “my relationship with my oldest daughter. It’s a fine balance to be the parent you want to be and the human being you want to be. And sometimes they don’t seem to line up.”
Maya Hawke was 6 when her mom (Uma Thurman) and dad (Hawke) divorced. At 27, she’s an acclaimed actress (“Little Women,” “Stranger Things”) and a musician.
And at 55, her dad is in the 40th year of a career that has included four Oscar nominations. His roles have ranged from angsty teen to a citizen journalist who is battered, bruised and persistent.