Jeff Nichols Brings ‘The Bikeriders’ to Arkansas’ Filmland, Where He Talks Casting Austin Butler and Tom Hardy’s Accent
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic One fan drove all the way from Louisiana to Little Rock to see the new Austin Butler movie, “The Bikeriders,” hoping the “Elvis” star might show up.
Unfortunately, the ongoing actors strike prevented Butler from attending Filmland, a local industry fundraiser that hosted the Arkansas premiere of the film earlier this week — a rowdy portrait of a 1960s motorcycle gang freely inspired by a book of photos New Journalism pioneer Danny Lyon took while embedded with the Outlaws.
But Butler would have been there had the labor dispute been settled in time, director Jeff Nichols told the crowd. Nichols, who now lives in Austin, Texas, grew up in Little Rock, and co-founded the Arkansas Cinema Society after discovering that his hometown had no organization to bring together filmmakers and movie lovers.
For the past seven years, he’s been bringing movies and stars — like Adam Driver and Jessica Chastain — to ACS’s annual Filmland fundraiser.
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