“Everybody Suffered”: ‘THR Presents’ Q&A With the Cast of ‘1883’

James Hibberd
·3 min read
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The cast of Paramount+’s 1883 all agree: None of them would have made it.

The group reunited via Zoom for a THR Presents conversation (powered by Vision Media) to reveal new details about the arduous making of the Yellowstone prequel drama. During the discussion, Tim McGraw (James Dutton), Faith Hill (Margaret Dutton), Sam Elliott (Shea Brennan), Isabel May (Elsa Dutton) and LaMonica Garrett (Thomas) were asked if they think they would have survived the treacherous Oregon Trail like their characters embarked on in the show.

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“The first lush meadow I saw within three days of traveling, I would’ve said, ‘this is a good spot right here,'” McGraw says. “That’s as far as I would’ve made it. I don’t think I would’ve made it the whole way, for sure.”

“I’d have set up shop in Fort Worth and called it a day,” agreed Garrett. “This is as good as place as any.”

“There were people [who worked on the show] who were definitely up to making that trek, but I wasn’t amongst them,” Elliott says.

“I think we all realized pretty quickly it wasn’t for the faint of heart,” concurred Hill. “We had a lot more respect for those that did make that journey across and survived — just having no idea what they were going up against and going to be confronted with and also not knowing exactly where they were going and what it would look like.”

The cast didn’t have to imagine the hardship quite as much as they might have liked. The actors famously endured harsh elements for prolonged periods of time to film the series, which was shot on location in the wilds of Texas and Montana.

“The cold was the toughest,” McGraw says. “I can handle the heat being from Louisiana. But when it’s spitting snow and sleet and the winds are cutting through you and it’s freezing cold and the horses are acting up and you’re having to remember your lines and deliver them and not shiver …  that was for me the toughest part.”

“Everybody suffered — on all sides of the camera — everyone who was there,” Elliott says.

“That Montana weather cut right through you no matter what you had on,” Garrett says.

“Add a legit 1883 corset to that!” Hill says. “And then try to go to the restroom. We became very friendly pretty much the first week of filming. All bets are off. If you gotta go, you go find a tree and make it happen.”

“For me it was the dust,” May says. “Dust got to my lungs and I got bronchitis the last week of shooting.”

During the hour-long interview, the cast discuss a wide range of topics and got teary eyed when discussing some of the various tragic fates for a couple of their characters. McGraw and May detailed (spoiler alert) filming their devastating final scene, Hill choked up realizing that one particular decision by her character might have doomed Elsa, Garrett remarked on what it meant to play a Black cowboy in a genre that’s traditionally underserved people of color, McGraw and Hill discussed working together as a real-life married couple under such intense conditions, and the group revealed their favorite lines from the series.

“The great reward is we got do something really special and people responded to it,” Elliott says. “It’s been a long time since a good period Western had been done. And I don’t think one has ever been done that had so many truths come to the surface. It brought a whole other reality to that genre.”

For more from the cast of 1883, watch the full video at the top of the post. This edition of THR Presents is sponsored by Paramount+.

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