'Justified: City Primeval' Star Adelaide Clemens Says Working with Timothy Olyphant Like "Acting Gymnastics"

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We're seven episodes in to FX's Justified: City Primeval, the one-off reboot of the TV classic Justified based on novels by Elmore Leonard. And [🚨spoiler🚨] the most recent episode came with a bombshell: Sandy, played by Adelaide Clemens, betrays Clement to U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens before making a swift departure from Detroit (she is still on the wrong side of the Albanians after all).

If you’re wondering why Adelaide looks so familiar, you’ve probably seen the Australian actress before. Her TV credits include FX’s Under the Banner of Heaven, CBS’s Tommy, and a memorable turn as Tawney Talbot in the acclaimed Southern gothic series Rectify on AMC+. She has also starred in Max's Parade’s End as well as several indie movies, including 2022’s The Swearing Jar with Patrick J. Adams (aka Mike Ross on Suits).

Justified: City Primeval is a departure from the first series in that the central character, Raylan, is not in the book City Primeval, but rather the plot has been reimagined as a Raylan story. Still, the relationship between Sandy and Clement (played by Boyd Holbrook) recalls the dynamic between Ava and Boyd Crowder in the original six seasons: a smart, beautiful woman inadvisably drawn to an unhinged yet charismatic criminal.

While we wait for the dramatic conclusion of the limited series, which airs on FX on Tuesday, August 29, at 10 p.m. ET/PT and streams next-day on Hulu, we sat down with Adelaide to chat about what makes her character tick and her experiences behind the scenes, including why working with star and executive producer Timothy Olyphant (Raylan) is "like acting gymnastics."

In Justified: City Primeval, you play Sandy Stanton, girlfriend to outlaw Clement Mansell. What drew you to the role?

“When I read the script, it was just so exciting. It’s a pulpy show. It’s fun. It’s like all my favorite movies growing up. I loved Alabama [Patricia Arquette] in True Romance [1993] and Lula [Laura Dern] in Wild at Heart [1990]. They’re the dream characters that, as a young girl, I wanted to play. So this was that opportunity, and I’d never really had that opportunity to really flesh out a character like Sandy. She’s hot. She’s vain. She’s fun. She’s working guys, and she’s a criminal [laughs]. It was fun.

“Then, I saw who was attached. Tim Olyphant and I did a play together before in New York [Hold on to Me Darling directed by Kenneth Lonergan]. He was incredible in that, and he’s a dear friend of mine. I had an instinct—and my instinct was correct—that it was a good group of people.”

What is Sandy thinking being with Clement—and what finally makes her leave?

“I think she’s in a certain amount of denial about how bad things have gotten. All the way through, Sandy has no intention of leaving Clement. She is completely in love with him. Whether that is a healthy relationship, we all have our opinions on that, but to her this is the kind of love she knows, the kind of love she grew up with, so I don’t think she has any intention of leaving. Once the veil of denial comes down and she starts to see Clement for who he is, I mean, he’s really unwell—he’s a sociopath with mania and impulse control issues, and he has a violence in him that really gets the better of him.

“There are certain boundaries that she has in the relationship, though—there’s that scene where she tells him, “Go brush your teeth.” She has standards, and she is a woman who could get pretty much anyone, so I think it’s healthy that she knows that about herself. I think the heartbreaking thing is she really wants it to work out with Clement.”

Justified—the original and the reboot—is known for those moments of dry humor when the characters are in serious danger. Does the humor carry over behind the scenes?

“Oh my god, constantly. Everyone is so fun. Quentin Tarantino was supposed to be part of the project as a potential director [ultimately, it didn’t happen]; that was helpful to me in understanding the tone of the show. It’s almost like everyone’s pretending the stakes are really low, but they’re actually really high. It’s an ironic sort of approach. But Tim is hilarious, and Boyd Holbrook is so wonderful to work with. [Showrunners and executive producers] Michael Dinner and Dave Andron were so funny, and everyone—it was the best group of people.”

What was your most memorable moment on set?

“Tim is so fun. It’s like acting gymnastics because he comes up with things at the very last minute for you to play—not for his character but for you. So we were doing that scene in episode two where Sandy answers the door in her bathrobe, and Tim was like, 'What if she’s sick?' It was a seven-page scene where I suddenly had to play sick and figure out how to do that. So part of the panic that you see Sandy going through in that scene is actually just my genuine panic about, like, is this going to look insane? But that was really fun.

“Also, Boyd and I, we just had the best time. I think this often happens that the more anxiety-inducing the scene is, the more fun you tend to have. Maybe it was all that nervous energy that we had on set, but we would just laugh the whole day.”

When Sandy leaves Detroit, she indicates to Raylan she'll be turning her life around. Do you think she'll follow through?

“I think Sandy is a good person, and I don’t think she wants anyone to die, which is why—this line was ad-libbed on the day—when Clement is about to crush Skender’s [Alexander Pobutsky] leg, she says, ‘Babe, why don’t you just punch him in the face.’ She’s a best-case scenario type of person. She’s hoping for the best in every single one of these criminal ventures.

“I hope that she does that, and perhaps the terror and the fear that she’s been living in this relationship with Mansell might be enough to keep her that way. I think it’s challenging for people who are attracted to dangerous personalities stay out of trouble, but I hope for the best.”

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