Tim McGraw to Star in New Crime Drama TV Series ‘Robbers’
“I get a lot [of scripts]; it’s just finding the right thing for the right time,” Tim McGraw told Rolling Stone Country back in the fall. And it looks like the right time is now.
The country-singing actor’s reps confirm with us that he is set to executive produce and star in Robbers, a new crime drama series for TNT. The show is based on the 2000 Christopher Cook novel of the same name, with its storyline about two drifters named Eddie and Ray Bob, who go on a bloody, law-breaking road trip across the state of Texas. The only person who can stop their evil ways is Della, a young woman for whom Eddie wants to clean up his act. But Ray Bob continues to be the devil on his gun-toting shoulder.
McGraw will play Ray Bob — his first villainous role since portraying an alcoholic father in 2004’s Friday Night Lights. As Deadline reports, the country star’s co-executive producers are Michael Dinner, Carl Beverly and Sarah Timberman. Cook and Dinner are the show’s screenwriters, with Dinner also directing.
Before joining the Robbers team, McGraw was approached for several other series, most recently including TNT’s The Last Ship and Fox’s Wild Blue. This is the first time his schedule — and personal preferences —have allowed him to sign on for an entire series.
“It’s got to be something that moves me,” McGraw says of the few acting projects he chooses to weave in to his red-hot career. “As an artist, you’ve got to have a visceral reaction. If you have to think about it, it’s probably not the right thing.”
Over on the big screen, McGraw’s latest role is as a father and rocket scientist (“Guess which one of those is a stretch,” he jokes) in the George Clooney-led film, Tomorrowland. Out May 22nd, the Disney flick is about an inventor and a science-loving teenager who go on a mythical adventure to an otherworldly place that exists somewhere in their collective memory. It’s a plot that’s confusing even to one of its cast members.
“There’s not much I can say about it because I read the script, I acted in the movie and I still don’t understand it,” McGraw admits with a laugh. “It’s a huge production; there’s a lot going on. All the stuff I hear back, it’s going to be spectacular.”