Matt Letscher
A Conversation with Matt Letscher
(Emmett)

Q: What did you think when you were approached to do a Western adaptation of King Lear?
A: I thought it was a great idea and immediately got very excited. This is a tale where the land itself is another character in the story. This country, the state of Texas in particular, which is so big and so wide open, could be just like a kingdom. I definitely think it works well.

Q: Your father is a sort of mirror image of Lear, and the relationship between him and his daughters seems to run parallel with your father's relationship with his sons.
A: That's very true. This was another good reason to set the film in a frontier setting -- because land is really all you have. I was the oldest child, but I was born out of wedlock and my father took me in. My younger brother was born in wedlock, but his wife died and on her deathbed said, "You have to pass this on to Thomas." Had I been born under normal circumstances, I would have been the one to inherit the land, as the oldest child. Now that's not the case. I'm being deprived because of the circumstances surrounding my birth. So you have the idea of passing on what you've obtained to your children. That's present in both storylines. It motivates the children in both families in very similar ways.

Q: What do you like about being in a Western?
A: I love it all. I like being in the open country. I love being on horseback, and I love the weaponry and the costumes. What's so great about this production is that they're really trying their best to make it true Texas. You don't want to feel like you're watching a movie -- you want to feel like you are in Texas. As an actor, it's fun to be able to explore a whole new world that you've never been a part of, which is always the case with period dramas.

Q: What sort of dramatic elements do you think KING OF TEXAS promises?
A: It promises intrigue, murder, sex, thievery, high crimes and misdemeanors. It has it all. It really is an intense script and an intense story. This film is the ultimate definition of drama.

Q: : In the original King Lear, the main characters were equally divided between good and evil, and yours is definitely one of the darker characters in the story. What are some of the battles that are going on?
A: These characters are a little more shaded then being just good and evil. You get all sorts of questions about nature vs. parenting and where this sort of behavior comes from. You can really see the direct line between Lear and his daughters and how they behave. People will look at Susannah and Rebecca and they'll say, "Oh, they're evil." They're mean to their father. He spent a whole lifetime treating them like they were nothing, and then he turns around and, all of a sudden, wants all their love. It's the same with my character, Emmett, who was denied something his entire life because of how he was born. You could understand that sort of resentment. Do those things create license for murder and mayhem? Probably not, but this is Texas, it is the frontier and it's a hard country. You have to be a hard person. So, in some ways, I don't see any singular person as purely evil. I see them as being realists more than anything else. But there are good guys and bad guys in this story. You may be able to define good and evil in this script by those who keep their word vs. those who don't.