By all accounts, Jake Allyn was on a trajectory for a career as an athlete. Attending Cornell University, the Dallas, Texas native was playing collegiate football –  that is until his junior year, when the combination of a few injuries and the realization that his lack of speed might hinder any advancement to the professional ranks, gave the then-20-year-old a moment of reflection. As they say, when one door closes, another opens – and in this case, that door led to an acting class. Feeling the same rush and passion that he had for sports, Allyn knew instinctively that this new path was right for him, and also, much easier on his body. After a stint in Jakarta for a year, the actor returned to the States where he subsequently starred in the TV series The Quad and The Baxters. Meanwhile he finessed his writing which led to the screenplay for Ex Patriot and now No Man’s Land. The latter, a modern western that examines the illegal alien issue by creatively altering the protagonist , was directed by Allyn’s older brother Conor, and gave the actor an inspiring starring role.

Sylvester Stallone with Rocky and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon with Good Will Hunting are just two examples of actors who wrote scripts for themselves to showcase their talents. And now Jake.

First of all, those are some humbling comparisons and I appreciate it. I don’t know if I am there, but I certainly did my best.

In creating this work, what were you trying to showcase about your abilities?

For me, my dad and older brother are both writers. As I was starting out in acting, I really didn’t become a writer to create roles for myself. It is just the family business, I always thought of it as two different roads in my career, one being acting and one being writing, and this just seemed the perfect vehicle to combine the two. This was just a story that I really wanted to tell and thought that I could tell well. We have seen a lot of immigration movies. I love travel movies but I hadn’t seen one in reverse and thought that is where I can fit in.

Growing up in Texas, how much of riding a horse or putting up a fence is in your DNA?

I hope it’s in my blood. I knew the horseback riding was something I had to get to a whole new level of good at. I can saddle a horse blindfolded. That is what a rancher has. That is what a cowboy has. More important, that is what Jackson had. Being a cowboy was something he loved. It was part of his family and just in his blood. That was a great way for me to do my acting prep by just doing cowboy stuff every day. Not only did it help my performance, but helped the script.

How so?

I was in Mexico for about a month before the movie. I would drive out about two hours outside Mexico City every day to ride horses with these charros. I would come home each night with new stories and information about horses and that lifestyle. That started to bleed into the script which freaked out my brother. I kept writing new scenes and said we had to have it in the movie (laugh). He didn’t really prepare a scene for me to be training a wild horse, but knew we could figure that out.

You mentioned your brother, not only are you working with him but he is your director. As siblings, how do you navigate that relationship both personally and professionally?

He is a few years older than me so he is just my big brother and I am good with that. In a film, it is a director’s medium and so the director needs to be the boss on set. I brought Conor the script about two months before and handed it to him and said ‘this Bible is yours now. It is your story and I need to go and become Jackson.’ I wanted him to have the confidence on set that he was directing his movie, not mine.

We have discussed the immigrant story for years in cinema but you have juxtaposed things by making the American the displaced figure inside Mexico. What did that element add to the story?

I hope we just made it more a purely human story. We didn’t want to make a political movie. I know immigration is a hot button, polarizing topic. But for the people who are really involved in it, like Texas ranchers that are losing their homes right now, or for Mexicans and Latinx families who just want to go north to give their kids a better life, I just wanted to give them their voice in this. So, we have this Texas father who is trying desperately to keep his ranch together and this evolving landscape that is evolving right in his back yard. I wanted to give a voice to this Mexican father who is desperately trying to provide a better life for his son. I even give voice to this misguided coyote, who isn’t a good guy, but why isn’t he a good guy? Is he bad? Is he evil? We are not sure. I needed to give him a voice as well because he belongs in this group as well.

Without giving away too much of the story, you delve into the issues of atonement and how  we accept responsibilities. What conversation were you trying to have with this?

For me, it was about acknowledging that there isn’t a perfect answer to the border and how we treat other people. If at first we can acknowledge the problem exists, and it’s a human problem between people as a border is just a line in the dust that we have created, once we can acknowledge that, then maybe we can fix the problems together. With atonement, there is nothing Jackson can say to get atonement. He has to show up.