Imagine you had three and a half hours to talk to Taylor Sheridan and barely asked him a single question about anything related to Yellowstone. The Yellowstone creator joined Joe Rogan for an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience this week, and over the course of nearly four hours, there was talk about everything from veganism to aliens to Ronald Reagan. There was no discussion of Kevin Costner, Matthew McConaughey or the ending of one of the biggest shows on television, nor was there any conversation about competing coffee brands. But fans looking for news about the Dutton universe weren’t completely turned off by the podcast episode.
Rogan clearly really loves the 1883 prequel to Yellowstone (which he only finished watching at 2 a.m. the night before the interview), and that leads him to ask a question that actually concerns show with Sheridan: “What the hell are going on with Tim McGraw and Faith?” Is Hill that good? Why are they so good at acting?
“Every singer can act, just like every comedian can act,” said Sheridan, explaining that he was most impressed with McGraw in the movie Friday Night Lights. “And Faith, she had never acted before. We were just hoping and she brought it.”Hill and McGraw, who have been married in real life since 1996, played the couple James and Margaret Dutton in the 2021 miniseries. They were the first Duttons to settle on the Yellowstone ranch in Montana, although they were initially on their way to Oregon. They stay in the picturesque Montana Valley after the heartbreaking death of their daughter Elsa (Isabel May), and their two young sons become grown men in 1923.
1883 is not based on specific real people, but it was inspired by research that Sheridan did around that time. He explained to Rogan that America was in dire need of new residents after the Civil War, and they began to entice Europeans by telling them there was free land. Many of them did not speak English and came from places where swimming was not even allowed, so they were extremely unprepared for the journey, as seen on screen. “The situations are all imaginary, but the tools and objects…that’s how they died and that’s how they lived,” said Sheridan.
