'Lawmen: Bass Reeves' Stars David Oyelowo and Lauren Banks Reflect On The Series 9 Years in the Making

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Lawmen: Bass Reeves, the new Taylor Sheridan-produced series, is a project that has been on star David Oyelowo's (Bass Reeves) mind since 2014. The show, which premiered on November 5 on Paramount+, tells the story of the infamous Old West lawmen Bass Reeves. Lawmen: Bass Reeves dives into Reeves's journey from slavery to one of the most influential law enforcement officers in modern day Oklahoma.

"There’s something, to me, miraculous about the fact that you have a guy who’s coming out of enslavement and not long after that becomes a Deputy U.S. Marshal, is a law enforcer, who is something who is there to meet out justice and is someone who has been subjected to the worst kind of injustice and yet he embraces that and does that for 32 years at the highest level. I just think that is a life of service worth celebrating," David Oyelowo (Bass Reeves) told Country Living of his desire to tell Reeves's story.

Oyelowo first learned of the legend of Bass Reeves nearly 10 years ago, and it has been his mission ever since to be a part of a comprehensive retelling of his life, something which he felt was missing from television and film up until this point. "I was approached in 2014 by a producer about doing a Bass Reeves show, I knew nothing about him. Like a lot of people are doing right now I did a quick Google search and I was just blown away by, not only who he was, but the fact that a film, a show, whatever hadn’t been made about him yet. He just seemed so larger than life especially given how much we love the Western genre," Oyelowo revealed.

David reached out to executive producer Taylor Sheridan about doing the show now and the rest is history. Of course, the story of Bass Reeves fit right in with Sheridan's other work, including Yellowstone and subsequent projects. Sheridan along with David and his wife Jessica Oyelowo all served as producers for the series.

A Family Man in the Wild West

One thing that differentiates Reeves from most typical Western lone stars is the fact that Reeves was also a family man. The series perfectly combines the action and danger associated with Reeves's career with his relationship with his wife Jennie Reeves and their 11(!) children, drawing in a more universal audience than your typical Western. "I felt that that was an unusual framing for a Western. It tends to be a loner who’s got a squint and a sort of quiet demeanor, going out there on his own, nowhere to return to, and we wanted to do quite the opposite in order to embrace a more universal audience," Oyelowo explained.

Bass's relationship with Jennie is portrayed in the series as one of the driving factors of Reeves's perseverance, through slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and on a day-to-day basis with the heavy emotional and physical demands of his career. Though his family and their survival, in turn, was also a huge responsibility financially and emotionally. "He had that support but he also had the inspiration and the responsibility to support that support. They needed each other in a beautiful way, and in such an equitable and balanced and necessary way to thrive," Lauren Banks (Jennie Reeves) explained. This dynamic relationship along with her preexisting knowledge of Bass Reeves as a historical figure drew Banks to the project.

Challenges on Set and Beyond

David Oyelowo and Lauren Banks both expressed the challenges of bringing their respective characters of life, much like the challenges the historical figures they portrayed would have faced in their time. Of course, as is the case for most Westerns, the entire cast attended cowboy camp to get comfortable doing tasks their characters would have done daily, including horseback riding, gun slinging, and, for Banks, child rearing.

"I had to populate my brain and my heart with what that experience is of being responsible for one, let alone multiple humans in this world... A layered understanding of motherhood was essential to playing Jennie Reeves," Banks explained.

At the same time, Banks and Reeves were forced to grapple with the reality of life for Black Americans in the 1800s. Oyelowo described his struggles filming on a plantation: "Shooting on an actual plantation was very challenging. We shot on a plantation where 80 enslaved people had been held and you could feel the vibe, the spirit of that."

As new episodes of Lawmen: Bass Reeves continue to drop on Paramount+ weekly, viewers can catch a glimpse into the real life of Bass and Jennie Reeves, thanks to the persistence of David Oyelowo and the participation of Lauren Banks. "Bass Reeves is someone we should have all had on the tip of our tongue for a long time, and I just hope that his legacy as a man, his legacy as a servant to this country is something that will go on and continue to be celebrated going forward," Oyelowo concluded.

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