1883 The Road West

- "1883" is... - Gritty.

- Intense. - Beautiful.

It's epic. There's no question about it.

It's a young woman's coming of age story.

- It's massive. - Mind-boggling.

It's a journey.

There's excitement, danger, unpredictability.

I don't care if I do any other show

for the rest of my life.

I only do Westerns from now.

Those are the kind of stories I like to tell,

and that's the way I like to tell them.

The idea to make "1883"

actually came from one of the studio executives

asking me about the back story of John Dutton.

And I explained it to him

from the origin of where they came,

and he thought that that in and of itself was a TV show.

I was intrigued by the idea, and so I wrote some flashbacks

that people have now seen on "Yellowstone."

So Taylor called, he goes,

"Hey, man, I want you to be in the show.

"I want you to be in 'Yellowstone.'

Are you're interested in it?"

And he says, "I got this idea."

"We're gonna do a flashback,

"and you're gonna play the original Dutton

"who founded the Yellowstone ranch.

You're also gonna have a wife in this."

He says, "Do you think Faith would be interested

in playing your wife in the flashbacks?"

If you go in the handbook of directors,

you're not supposed to hire a husband and wife

to do a movie together.

It's historically failed every time,

but you're also not supposed to film kids or horses, so.

We both watch the show,

so we were excited to have that invitation

and didn't know quite what to expect.

Then I spoke with Sam Elliott

about doing something in the space.

- I got a call from him. - "I got something to show you,"

and he sent me this series of scripts,

and there was no saying no,

because it spoke to me.

The character spoke to me. The show speaks to me.

You know what I'm doing here?

Looking for a reason.

You wanna be my reason?

I had not found the connective tissue

between this origin story of James Dutton

and this road to redemption story of Sam Elliott.

I had not found the bridge.

And the actress Isabel May read for me

for another TV series,

and it dawned on me that she was the bridge.

I called the network, and I said, I found our lead,

and I haven't written a word,

and you're just gonna have to trust me.

This is something different altogether,

'cause you're seeing it through the eyes of a young woman.

And I don't think that's ever been done before.

Not in this way.

We are seeing things through an 18-year-old girl's eyes.

And it's a very different vision of the West

because you see it, sort of her innocence

and her magic that she's able to show us this world

that has sex and violence and despair,

but also hope.

To play a character that narrates her own story

as well as every other character story,

it's extremely humbling.

Freedom is riding wild over untamed land

with no notion any moment exists

beyond the one you are living.

It's pretty phenomenal, right?

If you just sort of look at a big family tree,

it takes us back many generations

and that survival and fighting for the land

and doing what's right and protecting your family

are these similar themes

that were handed down generation to generation

until we get the John Dutton.

- Good shot. - Yep.

James is John's great, great, great grandfather.

You can see the bloodline.

You can see the strength in the bloodline.

You can see the backbone that this family has

and the power that they have,

and their concern for each other.

I believe in you, and I believe in that boy,

and I believe in our daughter. That's all.

That's why it's so important to the Dutton family

present day to fight for his land.

And, like, you see how fierce they are,

fighting for what's theirs.

God!

"1883" is a journey of an unlikely group of people

fighting against the forces of nature,

the malice of humankind

in search of change and a new home.

It's about freedom.

It's about the American dream, which, you know,

it's become this synonymous with the idea of freedom,

about the beauty of it and the ugliness of it,

and all the beautiful things

people will do for their freedom

and then also all the ugly things they do for it.

I can be a good wife.

Stop. Quit it.

The thing about "1883," it's a tale that's been told.

It's a tale that we're all familiar with,

the Oregon Trail.

But it's never been done like Taylor's done it on the page.

You think we're fools just because we...

- You have no horses, no guns. - You can't ride.

You are a fucking fool.

History is doomed to repeat itself

because it's never taught accurately.

As a storyteller, my job is to try

and hold a mirror up to nature

and reflect back the world as it was.

I think that it's truth through fiction.

- There's a grittiness to it. - There's an authenticity to it.

It feels real.

The struggles are all real. The people are all real.

We're traveling with a caravan of immigrants.

It was incredible for me

because I am an immigrant myself.

So I get to tell a story of someone

who goes across the world to follow their dream.

Most people who went West

saw ads in newspapers in Poland

and in Croatia and in Germany and answered those ads

and saved up all their money, sold everything they had,

and hired a group that would take them on these wagons.

In the 1800s,

there's actually a large flight of immigrants to America

because there's overpopulation.

And there was a high rate of unemployment.

It's actually interesting there has been a Texan...

A German Texan immigrant who wrote letters,

like beautiful letters,

how beautiful Texas is and everything,

and these letters were printed in a German newspaper.

And many Germans at the time read them,

and that was their decision to come.

I think people dreamed of change

and creating something and having land

and being free.

It's a free country.

That's a free country.

That is Comanche land.

Beyond it is no man's land,

and that's where we're going. You ain't free yet.

And these people didn't speak English,

had no notion of what the Southwest was like

or the Great Plains were like.

Had no idea they were horribly unprepared,

facing a whole new host of diseases

that they've never been exposed to,

elements they've never been exposed to.

It was an extremely dangerous, dangerous journey.

- I'll push her. - Now get to the back.

This is what happened.

This is the journey that our ancestors took,

and it was horrifying and extremely difficult.

- It's nothing new. - It's happened back then.

It's happening now.

We're all immigrants in this country,

and this journey... it's so compelling,

and it tells a story that just... it's gut-wrenching

but it's truthful.

And there's a lot of people in this journey

that haven't been represented in other westerns.

I don't think that there is a more misrepresented group

in American cinema than the Native American.

And what little I can do to correct

that historical perspective in fiction, I'm gonna do.

When historians write books about native people,

a lot of times they put us in this box, right?

And they say, oh, they were hunter-gatherers,

or they lived according to this way.

It completely removes the idea

that we were also individuals.

We had our own individual tastes,

our own individual attractions.

And that's kind of the way the storytelling has gone

in Hollywood for a long time.

One of the most interesting things

is the number one cause of death on these wagon trains

was people falling off a wagon

and getting run over.

The number two cause of death

was accidental discharge of firearms.

Number three, it was drowning in river crossing.

Number seven was Native Americans.

I think in all the stuff that we learned growing up

was the number one fear was Native Americans.

And nine times out of ten, they were trying to help.