Kyle McManus is walking around living two lives this season and, as it turns out, so is the man helping guide him.
In a new interview with Where Is The Buzz, Thad Luckinbill chatted about Lioness Season 3, coming weekly on Paramount+, with the story split between Joe’s abduction and the six months before it. Kyle is seen as a man blissfully ignorant of the fact that his station chief is soon to be hauled off a suburban street. The very next scene? Kyle as the man trying to unravel the world to save her.
Asked if he had ever wandered onto set and found himself asking which version of Kyle he was supposed to be playing that day, and whether that producer side of him saw it as a risk or an opportunity, Luckinbill did not hesitate.
“No… listen, that was a big topic of discussion every day, and even… I remember being in the boardroom or, you know, in our chairs before we would shoot, and… listened to Zoe and Nicole and everybody talking about what timeline we’re in, everybody was sort of trying to stay on top of it, because it was tricky. It was a tricky…”
“It’s a tricky device, and… but it… it’s rewarding for the audience, I think, personally,” Luckinbill said. “I like it. I think it makes it… it keeps everybody on their toes, and it also makes everybody pay attention. There’s a lot going on in this season, so having that also adds just suspense and, you know, keeps everybody on the edge of their seat. But yeah, we all did. We all did. It was a huge…”
The confusion, Luckinbill says, was something they all felt.
“Whether it was the mole, or whether it was the timeline, there was a lot of discussion on set with the actors, and directors, and producers, etc., but we were always, always trying to figure it out.”
The man who makes trouble is now the man in charge of stopping it
Episode 3 opens with Kyle conducting the interrogation, which is its own form of irony. Historically speaking, Kyle is the one who creates the problem. He gets Joe to take on the crazy mission and is shocked when she calls him on it. Now that Joe is missing, Kyle is the one trying to figure out what happened. He believes Alessandra’s story. Joe doesn’t.
So who is right? And should we as the audience trust Kyle as the man in charge with his partner missing?
“Boy, that’s a good question,” Luckinbill said, before circling it carefully. “I don’t know about who’s right or wrong. I think… Well, I don’t know, what can I say? That’s the question. I don’t know.”
Knowing there are some things he’s not supposed to say:
“I don’t know how much I can say. Look, it is strange, because yes, he is… Kyle is the one who always causes the chaos, historically in the show, and… But, you know, I’ve said before, right, he operates in the gray, and that comes with a lot of baggage, and that comes with a lot of disruption and chaos.”
What will he share?
“I do think he got what he needed out of Alessandra, and I think, you know, I think he, along with Cruz, were very convinced that, that she might be telling the truth, and there is some validity to her story, and… So…”
He offered his take.
“I think, I think Kyle was kind of proven right, in a sense, because when she… when Joe interrogates her, I think she gets a different opinion as well than she had going into it.”
The producer who just wants to say the lines
Luckinbill has a unique job that a majority of his castmates do not. Through the media company Black Label that he and his brother Trent run, he has helped produce films like Sicario, Only the Brave, Reptile, La La Land, and Die My Love, bringing in over $800 million worldwide and five Oscars to date. Then he wanders onto the set of Lioness, where every episode is written by Taylor Sheridan, who then shoots the whole season inside of a 450,000 square foot studio complex in Fort Worth.
Producer’s dream, or producer’s nightmare? Luckinbill jumped in, corrected the mispronunciation of Sicario on behalf of Blanco, and went back fifteen years.
“Oh… Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, I met Taylor because we produced Sicario, which was the first… I believe it’s the first film he wrote. And… I, like, literally, that was 15 years ago, and, like, I fell in love with the way he writes. I remember… I remember where I was. I’ll never forget where I was when I read that script. And I also remember not being able to finish it, because I knew that if I tried to finish this script that night, I wouldn’t sleep. So I woke up the next morning and finished the last half of the script.”
His admiration is still intact.
“And so, he’s always had, just an absolute, like… I’ve always been mesmerized by his writing, and that’s… that’s… I’m yet to be let down. I mean, he pours a lot of emotion, and obviously just a magnitude of intelligence, into what he’s writing. And human connection, which is, I think, the most important. I mean, Hell or High Water is such a perfect example of how… just beautifully, he writes.”
Which leads him to the divide between producer and actor that exists in his life.
“So, for me, it’s like, I am a producer and an actor. I was an actor… I’ve been an actor for 26 years, I’ve been a producer for probably about 14 or 15. And, you know, obviously, your first love is your first love, and acting was the first thing I did when I moved here, and you know, it’ll always be the thing I love the most.”
He tried to use a homecoming metaphor to explain the experience of being on set without having a budget to look after.
“And it feels the most rewarding, and it feels like, you know, it’s like… it’s like when you go home to your parents’ house when you’re in college, you’re like, this feels good, right? That’s what it feels like for me when I’m on set, and I don’t have the producerial responsibilities. Having to worry about the budget, and having to worry if we make our day, and the hot costs, and all the stuff that goes into it, right?”
“But, you know, there are also a lot of movies that we do where I act in as well, and that’s a fun hybrid for me, to be a producer and an actor. But on this show, because it is a lot. I just… I really enjoy… I mean, the team they put together, and obviously Taylor’s scripts and everything he’s written, like… It’s just fun to show up and say the lines, and be part of the cast, and not have that responsibility, and let the professionals do it.”
Langley, Georgetown, and the front lines are all in North Texas
Season 3 seems massive. Langley. Georgetown. The front lines. Actually, pretty much none of it left North Texas. The Dallas City Hall stands in for the CIA headquarters. SMU plays Georgetown. How does that all sell if you’re standing in a studio in Fort Worth in January and pretending you’re in a war zone? With production taking place from October 2025 to March 2026, how much of that was rehearsing how to do the tactical stuff?
“Well, I mean, going back to my last answer, the team that 101 Studios and Taylor have put together are incredible at… I mean, maybe some of the best I’ve ever seen, as far as cheating sets. I mean, that’s a Hollywood trick, you know, everybody does it for movies, etc., but… They really did it on this one. They’ve really done it when they’re cheating these locations, and you’re like… how the hell is this Fort Worth, or outside of Fort Worth, or whatever?”
There’s more to it than the location, he explained.
“So, you know, a lot of that is obviously set design, and having the right team, and etc., but a big, a big piece of it is… you know, Brandon Murbrook, who’s the military advisor for Taylor on a lot of this stuff, and does all the Lioness things. His, his team.”
“They get us ready, they prep, you know, all the scenes, the military, you know, all the advancement scenes, which are so tricky, you know, especially for guys who aren’t in the military, you know, to go and learn how to clear a house, and hold your gun right, and make sure this guy goes this way, this way, you know, there’s just so many things that are happening. That, you know, none of us regular people understand.”
And the time they have to prepare is brutally short.
“And they have to try and teach it to us in 2 or 3 weeks, and then they work with us ongoing as we have scenes, the scenes get closer, but… A big shout out to those guys, because if it weren’t for them and their preparation, their military, like, advising and technical, you know, consulting with us before, and the training, and then during training, and then during shooting, it would not look that good.”
Lioness returns every week on Paramount+.
