(dramatic music)
- Camera set.
- Set.
- Action.
(crowd cheers)
(dramatic music)
- Let's roll.
- When all the pieces in my brain came together for 1883,
I decided to write it like a novel
and then just film the novel.
- The writing is just really amazing.
We knew that it was going to be authentic to the time.
- There's three classic struggles in these Westerns,
it's man against man,
man against himself,
man against the environment.
And those struggles are all in this in spades.
- And action.
- Leading a wagon train north,
figured you might be headed same way.
- 1883 is the origin story of the Dutton family.
But it's like an original piece.
You don't have to have ever seen Yellowstone to watch it.
- Most people who went west
had no notion of what the Southwest was like
or the Great Plains were like.
Had no idea.
They were horribly ill prepared.
- We're traveling with a caravan of immigrants.
And I think that that's a modern sort of turn
on today's world.
- And this journey, it's so compelling
and it tells a story that just, it's gut wrenching,
but it's truthful.
- You are pioneers.
You have no home, no job, no farm.
You have the journey.
That's it.
- Billy Bob was so fantastic.
He was like the angel on my shoulder.
- I play this sheriff, Jim Courtright,
who is pretty straight to business.
Don't just sit there shaking, are there any more?
(gun fires)
(dramatic music)
- So the infamous cowboy camp,
it's time that Taylor allows the cast
to all meet one another
and just learn how to ride horses,
but in a fun, interactive setting.
- Cowboy camp was the most fun out of all of it.
You know, we're riding around on horses,
target practice, we're roping, we're doing all this stuff.
- And we fully immersed ourselves in the cowboy culture.
This is ranch living right here.
- I'm learning how to ride a horse and rope.
- I am particularly good on a horse.
It was probably because the horse was very well-trained.
So I don't wanna take all the credit.
- That's a harder deal than people think it is
to drive a wagon.
- It was a bumpy ride.
This the closest thing I've gotten to a massage since July.
(dramatic music)
- The art directors and the art department
in general are brilliant.
- The first thing is just turn back the clock to 1883.
- So that's been the journey, literally not cheating it.
There's no VFX.
- When I get to see the actors kind of walk on set,
that's the best part.
- I have to admit I'm a super nerd
for good production design.
I always go and look at the props.
- Designing 1883 has been quite the journey
and something new for me.
- Janie Bryant is a visionary.
She really did her research
to piece together everything to be custom made.
So it was really quite impressive.
- Welcome to the White Elephant Saloon.
So you can see that we've actually enhanced it quite a bit.
We brought in our own lighting,
brought in our own taxidermy.
We brought in all of the furniture.
I think it turned out quite nicely on this one.
(dramatic music)
- You ready to travel?
- I've spent my last night in this town, I'm leaving now.
- As a storyteller,
my job is to hold a mirror up to nature
and reflect back the world as it was.
- It's rare to have the kind of story
that we have been handed.
- A story about this diverse group of people
that came from far and wide.
- This is what happened.
This is the journey that our ancestors took.
- I think Taylor creates such an incredible world
with his writing, that it's so easy to get lost in it.
- The audience is gonna get very connected
to these characters and some heartbreak is coming
and some catharsis is coming
and some beauty is coming and, you know,
I can't say much more than that.
- 1883, new episodes now streaming
exclusively on Paramount+.