“Godless” seems like a standard Western, filled with dust, marble-mouthed gunslingers and blood feuds.
But the new Netflix series, produced by Steven Soderbergh (“The Girlfriend Experience,” “Red Oaks,” “The Knick”) and premiering Wednesday, centers on women — in a way that’s rare for the typically testosterone-fueled genre.
“There are so many incarnations [of the genre] in novels and films — the bad guys and the gunslingers,” says Samantha Soule, who plays Charlotte Temple, one of the “Godless” women. “All of that feels recognizable and iconic and nostalgic. But you don’t often get what it’s like to be women in that world.”
‘This is the first time I’m a regular on a TV show and you’re like ‘Right, no makeup. Filming in the dust!’
Set in the 1880s American West, “Godless” follows Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), an outlaw on the run from his former boss and father figure, Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels). As the two men conflict over the course of seven episodes, they cross paths with the residents of La Belle, a New Mexico mining town populated almost solely by women.
The series is directed by Scott Frank, best known for films like “Logan” and “A Walk Among The Tombstones.” “Godless,” in fact, was originally planned as a movie; Soderbergh was instrumental in persuading Frank to turn it into a series, instead.
“This script had been a feature-length script for years, and Steven was instrumental in pushing to take it to Netflix and expand it and make it a seven-part series,” says Soule. “[Soderbergh and Frank] are such a good team that I can’t even say how much [Soderbergh] was pulling strings behind the scenes; it seemed like such a seamless unit.”
Throughout the filming, Frank was adamant that the women should not wear makeup. “Scott [said] ‘I want no makeup. I want everything super-bare,’” says Soule. “This is the first time I’m a regular on a TV show and you’re like ‘Right, no makeup. Filming in the dust!’”
Soule, a New York native, comes to television from a theater background, having appeared on Broadway in “The Philanthropist” and at the Public Theatre in “Barbecue” and “Detroit 67.” Since “Godless” is her first major series, it was an adjustment for her to be on location in Santa Fe.
You can practically feel the dust and grit as you watch “Godless” — and for good reason.
“I actually got an eye infection at one point during filming,” she says. “I remember asking the on-set medic, ‘Do you think it���s an allergy to something?’ He said, ‘Well, it’s New Mexico in the summer; everything is trying to kill you.’ There are rattlesnakes and there are tarantulas and cactus spores are blowing around. It’s a harsh environment, and I’m an East Coast kid. This was totally foreign to me. It’s really dusty, and we had these crazy rolling thunderstorms that would come through almost every day.
“It was sort of an adventure.”