Interview: Jordan Harper on ‘She Rides Shotgun’
There’s something inherently cinematic about She Rides Shotgun, the debut novel from Jordan Harper. It could be the book’s gripping central plotline, which involves a recently released convict who’s forced to go on the run with his estranged daughter. It could be its endless amount of action sequences, which are written so vividly, you can practically imagine the camera angles, the bruises, the bullet holes, and the dust in the air as you read them. Or maybe it’s the story’s emotional core: a father and daughter forced into survival mode, learning to trust each other with their enemies hot on their trail. So it’s no surprise that, almost a decade later, the book has been adapted into a movie by director Nick Rowland, playing in theaters starting from today.
What is surprising, however, is that Harper didn’t intend to write the novel as a basis for the screen. Quite the opposite, actually. Harper, who at the time was known for his work on beloved TV series The Mentalist, wrote the book to escape the artistic confines of primetime TV. “It was a novel that people had commented from the beginning that they thought it should be a film,” he says. “But I certainly didn’t write it just to be a film. I take my novels very seriously and I’m very proud of it as a novel. But also, thanks to my years in television and writing screenplays, I do think I write cinematically, very visually. And so I understand why people said that. And I also just think that Nate and Polly are just such an iconic duo, that I think people knew that it could be a film. And I thought from the beginning it would make a fantastic movie.”
Intentions aside, however, Harper was already laying the groundwork for the film version before the book had even come out, encouraged by the number of people who told him they immediately saw its cinematic potential. “To be honest, I was working in television when I wrote the novel,” he recalls. “So it was a fairly easy transition for me… I already knew kind of the groundworks of television and film.” That knowledge, combined with agents ready to move quickly, helped sell the rights before the book even hit shelves. “I wrote the initial screenplay for She Rides Shotgun back in maybe 2016 or 17. I’m not really sure. And then it just entered into that long, slow process that, you know, Hollywood films take a long time to develop.”
Directed by Nick Rowland and starring Taron Egerton and Ana Sophia Heger, the new film adaptation follows Nate, a recently released convict marked for death by a violent gang, who’s forced to go on the run with his estranged 11-year-old daughter Polly. Shy, precocious, and wary of her father, Polly is swept up in Nate’s dangerous plight as they flee to evade the corrupt sheriff and brutal leader of a gang who will stop at nothing to protect his criminal interests. With scant resources and no one to trust, Nate and Polly form a bond forged under fire as he shows her how to fight and survive. And she ends up teaching him what unconditional love truly means in the process. “It falls into that category of great films like everything from Paper Moon to Bonnie and Clyde,” says Harper. “So, it definitely has a place in the canon, I think.”
Despite how easy it was for him to translate the book’s impressive visual language into an effective screenplay, Harper is clear-eyed about the strange, precarious nature of adapting your own work, especially when it comes to making big, substantial changes, or “killing your darlings,” as they say. “It was an incredibly interesting process that I found very rewarding — and I don’t think I’ll be repeating again,” he laughs. “I’ve come to understand that the author is a very tricky position to be in as a screenwriter… The danger of adapting yourself is pretty similar to the dangers of operating on yourself. Because you need to be able to make cuts without pain.”
After completing the first draft of the screenplay, Harper decided to take a step back from the film adaptation, leaving it in the more than capable hands of screenwriting duo Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, mostly known for their work with director David Bruckner. “I’m very proud of the work I did,” he says. “But I’m also very happy with the work that Ben and Luke did to take it from the book to the screen.” That detachment, he says, was necessary for the story to evolve into something that could fully live and breathe on screen. “Films are different than books are,” he explains. “And so I think in the future, I just want to keep writing books… I’m very glad to have been a part of this, but it’s really so much more pleasure now for me to have a team of other people who care about this project so deeply.”
That care is something Harper says he’s felt firsthand, even from a distance. Though no longer directly involved in the day-to-day of the production, he remained in the loop, watching from the sidelines as others, including Egerton, who came on board as not only the star, but the producer as well, took the reins. “I was at a screening last week where I heard Taron, Ana and Nick all talking about the film and I could see the passion they had,” he says. “And it wasn’t any different than my passion for this project. And that was really incredible to watch and to see spread that from an idea I had way back in 2012, you know?”
Harper says he first began developing the story over a decade ago, while he was still working as a writer and producer on The Mentalist. “I first got this idea in 2012,” he recalls. “What if Lone Wolf and Cub took place in the world of rednecks and Nazi punks?” What followed was years of writing, rewriting, and pushing to get the book published. And then even more time waiting for the movie to be made. Seeing it all come together was surreal, he says, as was his experience watching the film surrounded by an audience. “It’s just incredible,” he says. “To sit in that movie theater and have some of the scenes that you know just came out of my head on the screen, it’s hard not to get emotional.”
Harper is full of praise for the cast, particularly Egerton and Heger in the central roles of Nate and Polly. Egerton, specifically, is phenomenal as Nate, turning in what might be his best performance to date. “The performances are astonishing,” he agrees. “I think the way that Taron radiates danger before he ever does anything violent — but then when he does burst into action, it’s still over the top, incredible in this way that you’re still shocked.”
And as for Ana Sophia Heger, it’s hard to believe this is her first ever starring role. She delivers a layered, highly nuanced portrayal of a young girl forced to grow up way too fast, and somehow makes it feel effortless. “I think Ana is going to be a massive star,” gushes Harper. “Again, I brought up Paper Moon earlier. This is a Tatum O’Neal-level performance that she’s giving. And I knew from the very beginning that if you didn’t have Polly, you didn’t have the movie. It’s called She Rides Shotgun, you know? And that’s a very tough role for a young actress to do. She is heartbreaking and so utterly believable. There is not a false moment in this film.”
In the hands of any other actors, She Rides Shotgun could have very easily been just another action movie. Aided by the incredible performances of its two leads, however, the film manages to walk the line between adrenaline and emotional weight, keeping it firmly grounded even in its most brutal moments. That balance, between emotional depth and high-stakes tension, is what Harper says makes She Rides Shotgun work in the first place. “What makes this movie so special is what I tried to do with the book,” he explains. “Which is to combine a very hard, thrilling tale with these really deep characters so that you can kind of experience pleasure at every level. It’s a character story. It’s an action story. It’s a crime story.”
And while the film works perfectly as a standalone, Harper’s book featured an epilogue of sorts that revisited the character of Polly years after the events of the novel. Would he be interested in writing a sequel? “If I have the right idea, I will do it,” he says. “I think I will probably wait until Polly would be in her 20s… but I can’t force myself to write it. A novel is so difficult to write that I can’t force myself to do something I don’t believe is perfect. In the novel, Polly goes from this scared little girl to a fierce warrior. So doing an entire story where she’s already a fierce warrior — I’m not sure what that story is. Because to me, we’ve already told the most important story of Polly’s life, which is this story.”
SHE RIDES SHOTGUN is now playing in theaters.