Arnold Zwicky's Blog

About square-jawed as a (high-) masculine physical characteristic, last discussed here back in August (in “Give me some men who are square-jawed men”), with reference to actors in the tv series Murdoch Mysteries (set in Toronto), especially Dylan Neal. Now it’s the series Longmire (set in northern Wyoming), featuring two lead actors with strongly masculine faces, physiques to match, and a strong silent presentation of self as well: Robert Taylor (no, not that Robert Taylor, but the Australian Robert Taylor) as Sheriff Walt Longmire of (the fictional) Absaroka County and Bailey Chase as his deputy Branch Connolly. (A third leading male character, the Cheyenne Indian Henry Standing Bear, is played by Lou Diamond Phillips, appreciatively discussed in a 11/22/15 posting that also outlines the Longmire show.)

(Note: the show has two leading female characters, both very well played: Longmire’s daughter Cady (played by Cassidy Freeman) and deputy Vic Moretti (played by Katee Sackhoff).)

The tough and craggy Walt Longmire:

(#1)

Robert Taylor (born 1963) is an Australian actor who has appeared in many films and television series in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. On television he is best known for his lead role in the A&E television series Longmire. On film he is best known for playing Agent Jones in The Matrix (Wikipedia link)

Taylor’s American English accent is startlingly good, though not easily geographically locatable, beyond being “(south)western ranch”.

But it’s Bailey Chase who has the extremely square-jawed face (plus a cleft chin):

(#2)

(Chase has a wonderful smile, which he gets to use in other parts.)

And here he is shirtless and hunky, in an episode of Saving Grace with Gregory Cruz:

(#3)

Taylor appears shirtless in Longmire fairly often, but I haven’t found any usable images on the net.

Geographical bonus: the tv show is set in Durant, the county seat of Absaroka County, and surrounding country; the exterior shots are in fact mostly in Buffalo WY, the county seat of Johnson County —

[Important correction: Buffalo WY has advertised itself as the model for Durant in Longmire, and has boosted tourism this way, but (as a commenter points out below), the exteriors for the show are actually shot at various locations in New Mexico.]

on I-25 (north of Casper and not far from the  Montana State Line), just off I-90, and close to Bighorn National Forest:

(#4)

It’s a small town (population ca. 4,000), but picturesque, as you can see on the show.

My personal experience with Wyoming is at the other, very south, end of the state, just above Colorado, when driving between Columbus OH and Palo Alto CA in the warmer months of the year, on I-80, a route that goes through both Cheyenne (the state capital, population ca. 60,000) and Laramie (the site of the university, population ca. 32,000), as well as a lot of very arid high plains. I-80’s western terminus is in San Francisco; the connection to Columbus involves driving between I-70 (which runs through Columbus) and I-80, making the switch in western Illinois or via Denver and Fort Collins.

(Casper is Wyoming’s second most populous city, after Cheyenne, and Laramie is roughly tied for third place with Gillette (on I-90 between Buffalo and Sundance).)

However, most of my driving between Columbus and Palo Alto was in cold months (west in December, east in March), when the northerly routes (I-80, and, worse, I-90) were frequently impassable (remember the Donner Party, traveling on a precursor of I-80), so I had to angle between I-70 and I-40 (going though the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, and the cities of Albuquerque NM and Flagstaff AZ).

This entry was posted on October 9, 2016 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Language and the body, Masculinity, Movies and tv, My life, Shirtlessness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.