Martin Sensmeier (The Terminal List, Yellowstone) has joined the cast of AMC‘s Dark Winds for Season 5, which is currently in production in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In a series regular role, Sensmeier will play Terry Bai, a former Vietnam vet turned racetrack worker with ties to Chee (Kiowa Gordon) from middle school.
The project reunites Sensmeier with series lead Zahn McClarnon, with whom he costarred opposite in the Western drama feature The Last Manhunt, and with Gordon, whose last collaboration was on Netflix’s The Liberator.
As the show currently airs its fourth season on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT, there is no official description for Season 5. The show received an early renewal for Season 5 ahead of its current season premiere. Joining Martin as a series regular in Season 5 is Paola Núñez, whose casting we announced yesterday.
Based on the Leaphorn & Chee book series by Tony Hillerman, Dark Winds is set in 1971 on a remote outpost of the Navajo Nation near Monument Valley and follows Lt. Joe Leaphorn (McClarnon) of the Tribal Police as a series of seemingly unrelated crimes besiege him. The closer he digs into the truth, the more he exposes the wounds of his past. He is joined on this journey by his new deputy, Jim Chee (Gordon). Chee also has old scores to settle from his youth on the reservation. Together, the two men battle the forces of evil, each other, and their own demons on the path to salvation.
Season 4 focuses on the search for a missing Navajo girl, which takes Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito (Jessica Matten) from the safety of the Navajo Nation to the gritty terrain of 1970s Los Angeles in a race against the clock to save her from an obsessive killer with ties to organized crime.
The Season 4 cast also includes Franka Potente as Irene Vaggan; Isabel DeRoy-Olson as Billie Tsosie, a decisive and resourceful Navajo teenager who wants nothing more than the freedom to connect with her people outside of her boarding school but quickly finds herself in over her head with only her cunning and resilience keeping her alive; Chaske Spencer as Sonny, a recruiter for a Los Angeles crime ring who through his charm and menace lure young Native American men recently relocated to the city from their reservations into a life of crime; Luke Barnett as FBI Special Agent Toby Shaw who arrives searching for answers to a mystery involving one of his friends, and Titus Welliver as Dominic McNair, a ruthless crime boss who imports and exports drugs and stolen luxury goods into and out of Los Angeles. Season 4 also sees the return of A Martinez as Scarborough Police Department Acting Chief Gordo Sena.
Dark Winds is created by Graham Roland and is showrun by John Wirth, both of whom also executive produce. Additional executive producers include the late Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin, McClarnon, Chris Eyre, Tina Elmo, Jim Chory, Thomas Brady, Max Hurwitz, Vince Gerardis, and Anne Hillerman.
A busy Sensmeier will be seen in lead roles in several upcoming films, including Wind River: Rising; Ice Fall opposite Joel Kinnaman; indie Cottonmouth and The Isolate Thief opposite Sean Bean. His TV work includes major recurring roles on Taylor Sheridan’s 1883 and Yellowstone, as well as Westworld, Alaska Daily, and La Brea. Martin is repped by Robert Stein Management and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.
