If you have been keeping up with the new Paramount+ drama, “Mayor of Kingstown,” chances are you are familiar with Hugh Dillon.
He, of course, is a co-creator of the new series along with “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan. But did you know that Dillon has another role in “Mayor of Kingstown”?
According to Distractify, Dillon also has an acting role in the drama about a town where jails are the only industry. Dillon plays the character of Ian Ferguson. This is a character who is very close to the McClusky family. They, as viewers are aware, are at the center of most of the drama that takes place in the town of Kingstown, Michigan.
Ian Ferguson is a cop. He plays by the rules, but those are rules that he wrote himself. Hugh Dillon talked about his character during a November 2021 interview with Vital Thrills.
“I play Ian Ferguson. I grew up with McKluskys. He has an ethical drift that he’s coping with, that he’s unaware of, you know slightly desensitized. He’s hypervigilant, he’s predisposed to some darker impulses, and he’s a cop who does everything by the book, but it happens to be his book,” Dillon explained.
His role in “Mayor of Kingstown” isn’t the first acting role for Hugh Dillon. In fact, he has appeared in several episodes of Sheridan’s series, “Yellowstone.” According to IMDb, he has played Sheriff Donnie Haskell in 11 episodes of the beloved drama.
Dillon has had other acting roles over the years. These include parts in “Assault on Precinct 13,” “Durham County,” “Flashpoint,” “The Killing,” “The Expanse,” and “Twin Peaks.”
Hugh Dillon is also a musician. He is the lead singer of the rock group Headstones.
‘Mayor of Kingstown’ Co-Creator Hugh Dillon Found Inspiration in His Hometown for New Series
To create the “Mayor of Kingstown,” Hugh Dillon looked to his past. He specifically focused on his hometown.
Like the town at the center of the show, Dillon’s hometown was full of prisons. In fact, there were nine prisons. He told Newsweek that these prisons included a maximum penitentiary, a medium penitentiary, and a women’s facility with minimum security.
“You know, as a kid, my mom was a teacher my friend’s parents were prison guards, one was a warden, other friends were convicts and it was, you know, in this perfectly cultivated civilised world there’s this brutality and these institutions,” Dillon also said. “So, as a kid I was fascinated with it and I remember I’d drive by with my parents and I’d see the guard tower and you think at five and six ‘oh that’s Disneyland’, but it isn’t, it’s the polar opposite.”
Interestingly, the collaborations between Hugh Dillon and Taylor Sheridan began when Sheridan was Dillon’s acting coach.
