# Bill Paxton’s son takes on Western role late father never got to play: ‘I could literally hear my dad’

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/bill-paxtons-son-takes-on-western-role-late-father-never-got-to-play-i-could-literally-hear-my-dad/
- Published: 2026-11-06T16:43:54+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-06T19:11:28+00:00
- Original publisher: Fox News (publisher lean: Right)
- Original article: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/bill-paxton-son-western-role-late-father-never-got-play-could-literally-hear-dad
- Topics: Entertainment, Film, World

## Key points

- James Paxton plays the role his father was once set to take.
- The Western spent decades stalled before securing financing.
- The film connects two families to the project’s history.

## Summary

James Paxton has taken the lead role in *Last Train to Fortune*, a Western his father, Bill Paxton, was cast in more than 30 years ago. James says working on the film helped him feel close to his father, who died in 2017, and brought a long-delayed project to the screen.

Bill was set to star alongside Malcolm McDowell when the film stalled after director Lindsay Anderson’s death in 1994. Attempts to revive it gathered pace in 2017, but financing remained an obstacle; director Adam Rifkin says it was secured after James joined the cast. The story also held personal meaning for Rifkin, whose late mother, Michele, wrote the original script in 1986 and saw the actors in costume before her death.

---
Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.