This week, Paramount+ launched in the UK with a broad content slate of more than 8,000 hours of content. The crown jewels in Paramount’s wares are writer/director/creator/showrunner Taylor Sheridan’s (“Sicario,” “Wind River”) “Yellowstone” series and its spin-off “1883,” both of which come from 101 Studios. A modern Western family dynasty drama, “Yellowstone” is set in current times and features actors like Kevin Costner, Cole Hauser, and Kelly Reilly as members of the Dutton family, protecting their ranch from the various forces trying to landgrab from them. As the series has shown, after four seasons and an upcoming fifth season in the fall (November 13, to be exact), patriarch John Dutton (Costner) made a promise to his grandfather to never sell the land, hold onto it, protect it, keep it in the family, regardless of whether it’s the right thing to do. It’s a promise he never intends to break as long as he is breathing.
The spin-off “1883,” as the title suggests, is set back in the late 1800s after the Civil War and centers on the Dutton family ancestors before they migrated to Montana, specifically Dutton’s great grandfather and great grandmother, James and Margaret Dutton. For the critical role of these important relatives, Sheridan went outside the conventions of traditional casting and found two country music legends: married couple Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.
While both of them have done their share of acting, they’ve usually had supporting roles and certainly have never led a series on their own before. Not only that, the duo had never played a married couple on screen before. “It was really the hardest thing we’ve ever done, but also the most rewarding,” Hill said during this week’s press day celebrating Paramount+’s UK launch.
“We were such big fans of ‘Yellowstone,’ big fans of Kevin [Costner] and everyone else [in the cast], and we didn’t want to let them down,” Tim McGraw said in a separate interview. We didn’t want to do their origin story and have them look at them and say, ‘gosh, that kind of sucked.’ We wanted them to be proud. Hopefully, we set a legacy that [those on the ‘1923’ series] can continue.”
That’s right. “Yellowstone” is still expanding its empire. Coming next is “1923” (originally titled “1932”), a series starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren that picks up with the next generation of Duttons, presumably John Dutton’s grandparents. However, the exact relations so far haven’t been disclosed. “I’m really not sure what the story is going to be yet,” Hill said, noting that Sheridan has been playing it close to the vest.
Regardless, as “Yellowstone” fans, they both were shocked and grateful when Sheridan called and proposed they star in the “1883” prequel. “We’ve done a lot of things together, but yes, we’ve never been on film together, and yes, we’ve had offers to do things, but it was never the right thing,” Hill explained. “So when Taylor came to us, called and asked if we would be interested and then wrote this and sent the show to us, it was like ‘Wow!’ We felt so grateful and blessed to have the opportunity to do it and to work off something that’s one of the best things we’ve ever read.”
Hill suggested she and McGraw have turned down a lot of projects because they weren’t the right fit, but both were deeply impressed by the scripts Sheridan turned in.
“We’ve read a lot of scripts and books and [we were] wowed,” she recalled of Sheridan’s teleplays. [We were like], ‘if this is filmed and produced and if we can pull it off as well as it’s written—because it felt like reading a novel—this is going to be amazing.’ Transformative, actually, so it was rewarding for both of us, and we feel very fortunate. It was really hard, but it was worth it.”
McGraw echoed many of the same sentiments and shared that he had never acted next to his wife, and he was impressed with how she brought her A-game every day and forced him to compete. “We never acted together, so to play husband on wife and screen with such a phenomenal, well-written script that was so dramatic and had so much great character and depth to it was pretty spectacular,” he said enthusiastically. “[And] to watch her every day, watch the work she did, be in scenes with her where she constantly surprised me and upped my game every day, that was the biggest reward.”
Asked whether the very American “1883” can connect in the UK and beyond, the pair were both confident that the themes throughout were more than universal but had teachable moments too.
“It’s a Western and an American story, but America was built on the back of immigrants, ancestors,” Hill said. “And the depiction of Native Americans, there’s a lot learned and taken away that is very important, facts, history. It’s important for us to know. Taylor did an amazing job of respecting [that culture]. I’m excited for [non-American] audiences to see it.”
Everything seems rosy for the acting pair who will appear in the second season of “1883” either later this year or early 2023. But the one thing McGraw says he could do without is “1883” flashbacks in “Yellowstone” season five, as he believes their series no longer needs that help. “I don’t feel like flashbacks are [necessary],” he said. “I don’t want to water down our characters; I feel like the show stood on its own so well. I’d hate to go back and just piecemeal and revisit them in just little segments.”
Taylor Sheridan, you listening?
Paramount+ launched in the U.K. this week, online, on mobile, and on a wide range of connected TV devices via the Paramount+ app, via broad direct-to-consumer distribution through Apple, Amazon, Google, Roku, and Samsung, and more to come. The streaming service will also launch on Sky platforms in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, and Austria later in 2022 as part of a new multi-year distribution agreement that also includes the extended carriage of Paramount’s leading portfolio of pay-TV channels. – Additional reporting by Katherine Jane Alexander.