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My very favorite David Milch quote came from that day. He was talking to Powers about playing a scene from the pilot where Swearengen is about to kill Trixie, and he was trying to get something going in the eye-contact communication between the two characters, and he said, I swear, “You know when you strangle a dog….” And he proceeded to talk about the look in the dog’s eyes of supplication and terror, yet also love, and how that’s what Swearengen should be seeing in Trixie’s eyes. And he went on, but I think everyone on the set was still stuck back there at “You know when you strangle a dog?” I think it was the matter-of-fact “You know”, the acknowledgment of shared experience, that kind of arrested our attention. Great moment, one I have no doubt was manufactured just for the effect it had.

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