With an on-screen career that dates back to 1970, Don Johnson has had a long career full of diverse roles, but he is arguably known best for playing heroic police officers. Audiences have spent hours and hours watching his adventures as Detective James Crockett in Miami Vice and Inspector Nash Bridges in the character’s eponymous series, and that has given him a certain image in pop culture.
As such, it has been notable to see him play antagonistic lawmen in recent years, including the HBO series Watchmen and the new Jeremy Saulnier movie Rebel Ridge, and it’s not only been surprising for audiences, but for the filmmakers who cast him as well.
I interviewed Don Johnson late last month during the virtual press day for Rebel Ridge (now available to stream with a Netflix subscription), and I opened the conversation noting the contrast between his most famous TV roles and the character Chief Sandy Burnne. Given his long established reputation as a performer, he recognizes that filmmakers want to work with him, but simultaneously, he has found that they are shocked when he accepts the roles they present. Said Johnson,
I think that a lot of filmmakers just want to work with me. And they're surprised usually when I accept taking these parts that I'm not generally associated with. They're always surprised. Every one of these directors has said to me, ‘I would've put money that you wouldn't do this.’
Chief Sandy Burnne is the chief antagonist in Rebel Ridge, and we learn through the course of the film that he has rigged a very profitable system for himself in the small rural town of Shelby Springs, Louisiana. He has regularly taken advantage of what are ultimately both loose and complicated civil forfeiture laws that allow his police station to be flush with money and weaponry. When former Marine Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) rides into town hoping to post bail for his incarcerated cousin, Burnne and his loyal cops try to run their legal scam on them, but he proves to be far more dangerous a target than they could possibly imagine.
As far as how Sandy Burnne relates to Don Johnson’s history as James Crockett and Nash Bridges, he made it clear that is he is more about looking forward and pursuing new and different opportunities. He explained to me that he has long seen himself as capable of great range, saying,
I like variety and I like challenges, and I like fooling around with characters that I haven't had the opportunity to play. And so I'm fortunate that way, in that I bring a long history of different characters, and I kind of always saw myself that way, of being able to be chameleon-like and move, you know, definitely between one character to the next.
Don Johnson certainly gives a great performance in the critically acclaimed Rebel Ridge, which is one of the best original movies available to stream on Netflix right now – the film’s supporting cast including AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman, Emory Cohen, and Zsané Jhé. Audiences will next be able to see him starring in Doctor Odyssey, the new Ryan Murphy-produced series set to premiere on ABC next Thursday, September 26.
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