Tim McGraw and Faith Hill have quickly become fan favorites on 1883, playing the roles of James and Margaret Dutton, as the OG Duttons to first make the trek out west, settling on the Montana land that is now Yellowstone Ranch.
However, little did we know that Tim struggled to find the words to ask Faith to play the role of his wife on the show.
When Taylor Sheridan began to shape the storyline of 1883, he always envisioned Tim to play the part of James.
McGraw recalled the first time Taylor asked him if he wanted the part in an interview with with his label, Big Machine:
“I’d been a fan of Yellowstone since the first night it came out. So, Taylor called, and he goes, ‘Hey man, I want you to be in Yellowstone, and you’re gonna play the original Dutton who founded the Yellowstone ranch.
And he said, ‘You’re also gonna have a wife. Do you think Faith would be interested in playing your wife?’ And it took me about three days to get the nerve up to ask her.”
He admitted that he was hesitant to ask her at first, but once he finally got the nerve to do it, she gladly accepted:
“She said, ‘Sure, I’ll be glad to do it. It’ll be fun.’ So, we did two flashback episodes, but the first thing we shot, it was just so much fun. We’re going so fast and the shootout was so great.
I remember gettin’ off the horse and walkin’ around going, ‘I don’t care if I do any other film for the rest of my life, I wanna do westerns from now on.’ And then cut to later on, Taylor called me and said, ‘I showed the flashbacks to the studio and they want to do a whole series now.’
So, when he sent the script for 1883 and we read it, Faith and I both were like, ‘This is just too special. It’s just too special not to do.”
I’d say it worked out pretty well.
