Editor’s Note: This interview took place before the writers strike that began May 2.
The cast of 1923 reunited for a chat about the first season of the hit Paramount+ Yellowstone prequel and gave some insight into the process of the franchise’s prolific creator, Taylor Sheridan.
“Taylor called us and said, ‘You have to look at every scene and imagine that it could be the most important scene of the episode, even if it’s just you walking from point A to point B,'” recalled Julia Schlaepfer (Alexandra) in the THR Presents panel, powered by Vision Media. “Everything has meaning.”
Related Stories
That meaning extended to Sheridan’s dialogue, which frequently uses unconventional sentence structures (example: “Why danger gives men such pleasure, I’ll never understand”). “Sometimes you get a weird sentence construction and you go, ‘Why does it go like that?'” recalls Helen Mirren (Cara Dutton). “Because it’s not the obvious or the straightforward way to say something. But I always found there was always a really good reason for it that you could find, and I found it really important to do the lines exactly as written and not the ‘easy’ way. You get so much richness out of it.”
“There’s definitely a musicality to it,” agreed Brandon Sklenar (Spencer Dutton). “There’s a rhythm to the way the characters speak.”
In another tidbit, Sheridan once gave a note about the dullness of slow horse scenes: “‘I never want to see a horse walking,'” Mirren recalled.
While 1923 was initially envisioned as a single-season limited series, Sheridan ended up expanding the show to a second season, which is expected to start production sometime this year. That said, while nothing is certain, the cast expects the second season will probably wrap the show. “I think of it as one piece — there’s just a split in the middle, but it’s all one piece,” Sklenar says.
Speaking of the next season, each cast member was asked — since they don’t know what’s going to happen yet — what they hope is for their characters.
“I’m sick of writing letters,” Mirren declared. “Don’t expect any more letters from me.”
“I probably wouldn’t read them anyway,” says Sklenar, whose character has been on a long journey back to the Montana homestead. “I just love to be back and on a horse and shooting a gun. The little kid in me is dying to do that … I would love to be a band of horse-riding cowboy. I’d love to have scenes with Cara and Jacob (Harrison Ford). I imagine we’ll get Spencer back pretty quick.”
“I would love for Alex to make it to the ranch and meet the family,” agrees Schlaepfer. “I hope we get to see some of her own strength come out now that she’s on her own. I want to meet the Dutton women. I think that that would be a lot of fun — and Teonna, we all want to meet Teonna.”
“I just want Teonna to experience what it feels like to be a child and what it feels like to be surrounded by love,” says Aminah Nieves. “I just want want see her running in the woods and playing … I also want Teonna to meet the Duttons. I think that’ll be incredible. I want a scene with all my best friends here.”
“I’d love to see Elizabeth find a purpose that might not be her family,” says Michelle Randolph (Elizabeth Strafford). “Her whole driving force the entire first season is her love story and wanting to be a mother. And I think there’s so much more strength to Elizabeth than what we’ve been able to see so far. So in the second season, I’d like to see her get outside, get on a horse, have some grit to her.”
“I hope I get to pop Timothy Dalton in the face, maybe shoot from horse,” says Darren Mann (Jack Dutton). “Avenge Yellowstone, and me and my girl live happily ever after.”
“Like Brandon and Darren, I have some unfinished business at this point,” says Brian Geraghty (Zane Davis). “Let’s just kill a lot of people.”
For more from the cast of 1923, watch the full video at the top of the post. This edition of THR Presents is sponsored by Paramount+.
