TV Talk: ‘American Rust’ showrunner talks filming in and around Pittsburgh

Dan Futterman, writer, executive producer and showrunner on Showtime’s “American Rust,” currently filming around the region, first came to appreciate Western Pennsylvania when he shot a small role in the locally-filmed 1992 movie comedy “Passed Away.”

“It’s not a great movie but I had a lot of time on my hands and I got to explore a bit and it’s an incredible city and surrounding area,” Futterman said by phone Tuesday while at the “American Rust” production office at 31st Street Studios in the Strip. “I drove down South along the Monongahela River and the drama of the drop-off to the water in some places and the bridges and the rolling hills, it’s just really gorgeous.”

And Western Pennsylvania is where the source material for the series is set, making the region Futterman’s first choice as a filming location.

Based on Philipp Meyer’s 2009 novel of the same name, “American Rust” is set in the fictional Mon Valley town of Buell, Fayette County (think: Donora, Brownsville).

To create Buell, the production is stitching together scenes shot in Rankin, Braddock, McKeesport and Ambridge. Recently the production went as far as New Castle, Portersville and McConnells Mill State Park.

Interior sets have been built at 31st Street Studios with some exteriors constructed on the backlot of Churchill Crossings.

“80-90% of our crew is local and everybody is terrific and very talented, great local casting, too,” Futterman said of his first shoot outside a major production center like New York, Los Angeles or Vancouver. “Pittsburgh is becoming more like a minor hub than anything. It’s not like you’re going and shooting in Lincoln, Neb., or something like that. It’s a place where movies and shows are coming, but I hope not too many so if we get a second season we can get our crew back.”

The nine-episode first season of “American Rust” stars Jeff Daniels (“The Newsroom”), Maura Tierney (“The Affair”), Bill Camp (“The Night Of”), David Alvarez (the upcoming “West Side Story” remake), Alex Neustaedter (“Colony”) and newcomer Julia Mayorga.

The series, expected to debut on Showtime this fall, follows compromised chief of police Del Harris (Daniels) as the woman he loves, Grace (Tierney), finds her son (Neustadter) accused of murder. Actor Bill Camp (“The Queen’s Gambit”) plays a disabled steelworker.

Futterman said the “American Rust” novel “forms the bedrock of the show” but the series also invents new storylines for some of the characters. And while most of the book is covered in season one, the intention, in success, is to continue the story in subsequent seasons exploring a theme Futterman said he keeps returning to in his work.

“Can you both love someone and use them at the same time?” he said. “And is that corrupting or not necessarily. I think in some cases it isn’t but generally probably [it is].”

Futterman is an actor-turned-TV-writer. On the acting side, he’s probably best known for his role as Vincent Gray, brother of the title character on CBS’s 1999-2005 drama “Judging Amy.” He won’t be acting in “American Rust.”

“There are always better actors than me to hire,” he said. “You watch Bill Camp or Maura or Jeff do something and just think, I can’t do that.”

On the writing side his previous projects include the third season of HBO’s original go-around with “In Treatment,” Fox’s “Gracepoint” (the American version of British drama “Broadchurch”) and Hulu’s “The Looming Tower.” (Futterman also wrote the script for locally-filmed 2014 movie “Foxcatcher” but he was never on set.)

Last March the cast of “American Rust” had arrived in Pittsburgh and done table reads of the first two scripts and were a few days away from filming when covid caused the shutdown of TV and movie production worldwide.

“We were going to be shooting primarily in Brownsville and then because we were limited in the number of hours [we could shoot] by covid rules, it seemed too far to go for most of our days,” Futterman explained.

In addition to Futterman, the writers on “American Rust” include Jaquen Castellanos (“David Makes Man,” “The Affair”), Alvaro Rodriguez (“Chicago Fire”), Celine Robinson (“Law Order: Special Victims Unit”), playwright Charly Evon Simpson and playwright Adam Rapp, who previously worked with Futterman on “In Treatment” and “The Looming Tower” and whose play, “Gompers,” had its world premiere at Pittsburgh City Theatre in 2004.

Actor Garbie Dukes, who was in Rapp’s “Gompers,” is among the 40 local actors who have had roles in “American Rust” so far.

“There’s a deep well of talent here in terms of acting,” Futterman said.

Although production on “American Rust” wound up delayed by a year due to the pandemic, Futterman said the delay and subsequent adjustments to scripts may prove beneficial in the end.

“If there’s any blessing in this — and there are not many — it was a chance to go back and look at the scripts,” he said. “There was a necessity to shorten scripts because of limited shooting hours. … It was a net positive in terms of the scripted material.”