Deadwood's tight-lipped sheriff loosens up

Timothy Olyphant's troubled character, Seth Bullock, gives little away in Deadwood.

There are few television characters as quiet as Sheriff Seth Bullock. He broods with repressed menace throughout the gritty Western series Deadwood, and his dialogue comes down to a few lines like, "I appreciate your kind concern" or "Don't!"

Get 38-year old actor Timothy Olyphant - who plays the moustachioed and troubled hunk - on the phone, however, and the man is unstoppable.

He gets away with the usual PR cliches ("the show has been successful and I couldn't be more proud of it") and his familiar background story (he only became aware of the potential for great television roles when he got HBO and saw his friend Dominic West in The Wire, so called his agent to see what parts might come be coming up on the American pay channel).

But he also embarks on free-ranging digressions about his character's unspoken motivation, the award-winning show created by David (NYPD Blue) Milch now in its third season, the controversial language that first drew attention to Deadwood, and the large ensemble of characters who move in and out of each episode.

But mostly it is his character - a proud man of good intentions - he discusses, suggesting he too is still finding out about Bullock.

Pinpointing source of Bullock's seething rage

When he first saw Milch's sketchy script he was baffled by the source of Bullock's seething rage. The pivotal character of saloon owner Al Swearengen (played by Ian McShane) was dominant and obvious "but you could barely get a handle on Bullock".

Milch spoke at length about how Bullock - who like other central characters in Deadwood is based on an historical figure - would develop and "each thing he told me was more compelling than the next".

What Milch didn't explain to the audience, however - although he explained it to Olyphant - was that as a child Bullock might have been regularly beaten by his father.

"So I asked, 'Are you going to tell the audience that too?' But David's willing to put this behaviour in that is not explained or in the story."

That makes Bullock a difficult character to get a handle on.

"Bullock is the complete opposite of Swearengen who you see as deliciously evil. After a while Swearengen has some good intentions, whereas Bullock sets out seemingly with great intentions but is constantly doing things that push people out.

"You try to like him but he's so difficult to get a hold of. So it's been challenging to play this character where you have to be willing to be unpopular."