Bill Paxton’s son, James Paxton, is carrying on his late father’s legacy by taking on a Western role that the “Twister” star was originally set to play more than 30 years ago.
In 1991, Bill was cast alongside Malcolm McDowell in the Western comedy drama “Last Train to Fortune,” but the project stalled following original director Lindsay Anderson’s death in 1994. “Last Train to Fortune” spent decades trapped in development but efforts to revive the movie were gaining momentum again in 2017 when Bill unexpectedly died, leaving the role that would ultimately be played by James.
During a recent interview with Fox News Digital, James, 32, opened up about how the project became a deeply personal way to reconnect with Bill, who passed away in February 2017 following heart surgery.
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“When you lose somebody, such a close loved one, you often look for ways to still connect to them,” James said.
“And that can take all manner of forms and paths and shapes,” he continued. “For me, I recognized immediately that this was the kind of project that I could literally hear my dad in my head the whole time. You know, if I needed any guidance or any motivation, or I had any questions, I knew that he would kind of — he would be right there with me, and he’d be cheering me on for it.”
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“So I saw it as a way to — almost like a conduit to commune with him, wherever he is and may be,” James added. “And there’s something beautiful about following in those footsteps.”
James recalled that Bill had his own way of putting his son’s decision to follow him into acting in perspective.
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“Dad had this metaphor about if this was 100 years ago, and we were a family of shoemakers or cobblers, my father before me was a shoemaker and his father before him, you’d probably go into the family business and become, hopefully, a good shoemaker,” James said. “So I’ve always held that close.”
Before Bill’s death, he had been working with McDowell and producer Brad Wyman on the “Last Train to Fortune’s” revival with Adam Rifkin as director, but financing repeatedly prevented the project from moving forward. After Bill’s death, Rifkin, Wyman and McDowell eventually approached James, who previously said that he hadn’t even known about the film while his father was alive.
According to Rifkin, the movie was finally able to secure financing once James signed on.
Bringing the project to fruition also had personal significance for Adam, whose late mother, Michele Rifkin, penned the original script for a PBS screenwriting competition in 1986.
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“It was always her son Adam’s dream to bring the film to life,” James said.
James recalled that Michele had been unable to visit the set as she was bedridden in the hospital during the movie’s production. However, the late screenwriter had the opportunity to see James and McDowell in costume when the duo FaceTimed her during filming.
“She told us that when she saw us in costume it was like we had walked right out of her imagination up off the page and into the real world,” he remembered. “And that was so touching, and it immediately made me think about my dad in that moment.”
“Michele passed away not long after that, and she got to see the finished film before it was released privately, which was amazing, but it made me think all the more about my dad,” James said. “Because I know that he … would’ve wanted us to make this even if he was still around, if they had never got off the ground. He would have been like, ‘James, here, this is your role,’ and so that kind of really made me think of him in that moment in particular.”
Although James was stepping into a role once intended for his father, he said he knew Bill would have wanted him to find his own approach to the character.
“It was totally important for me to create my own version just because I know what Dad would tell me,” he said. “And it’s tough for me because he was my best friend, so all I wanna do is talk about him and celebrate him, but he goes, ‘You’re your own actor. You’ve been studying this. You’re a professional.'”
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“I’ve done a lot of work actually in the past years that he’s been gone,” James continued. “But I know that he always wanted me to make it my own, and he would be like, ‘Don’t hitch up on my wagon too much, you’ll find it in yourself.’ But he would just give me these great acting pieces of advice and wisdom. So I knew that he wouldn’t want me to focus on that. He’d say, ‘Focus on, it’s the character’s moment to live, it’s Jedediah Dooley’s moment to come to life.’ So it’s not James up there, it’s not Bill up there, it’s the character.”
While Bill encouraged his son to forge his own path as an actor, James recalled that his father was equally determined for his children to develop discipline in other areas of their lives. Along with James, Bill shared daughter Lydia with his wife, Louise Newbury.
“He didn’t love it when my sister and I would sleep in too late,” James remembered. “He was a bit of a drill sergeant when it came to just getting up and doing something. So he would come in, and I became almost like — it was Pavlovian. As a kid, I became conditioned to hear his footsteps coming down the hall. And if I wasn’t sitting up and out of my bed by the time he came in the room, he’d rip the sheets off of me, and he’d go, ‘Rise and shine, you’re burning daylight out here.'”
“And he just put up the blinds, and it would just flood the room with blinding light and I would freak out a bit,” James continued. “But he’d get me going, and so I — even in my half-asleep state — I could jolt awake when I’d hear him coming. Even on the weekends, if he was home, he’d be like, ‘Come on man, get up and do something.’ He wasn’t controlling about what that was, but it was about motivating me not to just stay in bed.”
James recalled how Bill also wanted his son to have real-life experiences and not define himself solely through acting.
WATCH: BILL PAXTON’S SON RECALLS ‘DRILL SERGEANT’ DAD RIPPING SHEETS OFF HIM FOR SLEEPING IN
“I used to have a ton of all kinds of odd jobs,” James recalled. “I worked in tons of restaurants. I apprenticed as a tile maker. I worked for UPS. I had a lot of really cool experiences. I scooped ice cream, that was my first job. And those were largely thanks to dad encouraging me to do that.”
Though James said Bill supported his acting ambitions, he recalled that his father tried to prepare him for the realities of working in Hollywood.
“I would say he was probably more concerned with warning me about all of the pitfalls and the hardships that can fall,” James said. “Even somebody as successful as he was in his career, he ran the gamut of every Hollywood experience and every disappointment.
“And he always talked about it’s the time between jobs where you really can suffer,” he continued. “‘The death of a thousand paper cuts.’ he would call it. You have to find something that can buoy you between jobs, and you don’t put your self-worth in it.”
“If anything, he was like, ‘Man if you want to do anything else like, even just as much as this, do that instead,’” James recalled. “He was like, ‘This is a hard thing’ and so if anything, he kind of gave me this extra chip on my shoulder because I was like, ‘Well, I’m gonna go, and I’m going to book something and show him.'”
James made his career breakthrough in the USA Network crime thriller drama “Eyewitness,” which premiered in October 2016. While speaking with Fox News Digital, James recalled Bill’s reaction when he landed the leading role of Lukas Waldenbeck in the series.
“He almost couldn’t believe it, but there was this huge sense of relief,” James said. “And he called it a ‘real ticket to ride,’ as in, it was his way of saying, ‘This is a real opportunity. Now you go and show them and stuff. You’ve done the work to get here.'”
“So that was really cool,” he continued. “He saw that right before he passed, which was amazing.”
Since starring in “Eyewitness,” James has steadily built his acting career with appearances in projects including “Training Day,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Tacoma FD” and “The Cleaner.” In 2024, he made a cameo in “Twisters,” the standalone sequel to his father’s 1996 blockbuster “Twister.”
“I still get the whole ‘it’s Bill Paxton’s son’ thing, but I have over 45 acting credits,” James told Fox News Digital. “But I laugh it off. As Dad would say, man it’s all just — it’s a great experience, and you’re on the path.”
In “Last Train to Fortune,” McDowell’s character Cecil Peachtree misses the last train to his new teaching job in the frontier town of Fortune and enlists the help of James’ Jedidiah Booley to get him there safely, with the mismatched pair forming an unlikely bond along the way.
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In addition to their long-held plans to co-star in the movie, McDowell and Bill were close friends and neighbors in Ojai, California. James told Fox News Digital that McDowell recently reminded him of a story that illustrated how the “Clockwork Orange” star’s friendship with his father extended far beyond Hollywood.
“I grew up in the Ojai Valley, and we’ve obviously been plagued by a lot of wildfires over the years,” he said. “And it was a pretty bad one when I was quite young. I can’t recall exactly, it was early 2000s. Malcolm had a property that was kind of up in the hills, backing up against a lot of wildlife, ground, and forest. And the fire was coming up on his property, and he said that he saw Dad show up in full volunteer fireman regalia, like the full suit, ready to fight the fire with Malcolm.
“And there’s a great photo that Kelly, Malcolm’s wife, sent to me of the two of them,” he continued. “We’ll have to track it down because it’s great. It’s them, you know, they took a quick picture as they were fighting the fire and protecting the Ojai Valley. So I loved the thought of them working together on something outside of film, in real life.”
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When asked what he believed would make his father most proud of the person he has become, James pointed to his determination to keep going despite the difficult moments he has faced.
“I think he’d be most proud that I have never given up,” James said. “I think the perseverance. I think that if our past loved ones can see us at times, they can see our energy or something, they can see us from another place while we’re alive, they’d see that there’s often like moments of true despair.”
“I mean, I would be lying if I said I didn’t come close to giving up on a lot of things many times and being like, ‘What’s the point to keep it going?’, but then I realize that’s just a wallowing pity party,” he continued. “You’ve got to recognize the blessings and the privilege and keep it going. He’s like, ‘I set this up for you.’ And so I just want him to know that I’m always gonna honor what he gave me.”
“Last Train to Fortune” arrives on VOD Nov. 6th