For the first time, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw reunited on the same television set to portray wife and husband.
Starting last week, 1883 became accessible to watch to a multitude of fans following the Paramount+ launch in the United Kingdom. Versatile artists and country music royalty Hill and McGraw are pivotal characters in the prequel story of the much-acclaimed Yellowstone series. Talking with ComingSoon, the couple revealed the happiness that brought them working together and the importance of taking such an important story to a wider audience.
“1883 follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America,” reads the synopsis. “It is a stark retelling of Western expansion, and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land – Montana.”
Tudor Leonte: 1883 has been so celebrated by fans and critics alike. Not only have you had such a successful acting venture, but you did it side-by-side with your husband, Tim McGraw. What has been the most rewarding aspect of that?
Faith Hill: The fact that we were asked to do this amazing show. We got the script, read the first few episodes, and were like, “Oh my God, this is incredible.” And when we got by episode 10, we just couldn’t believe it. It’s one of those things. After all this time, we’ve been in the business for 30 years, and we’ve done a lot of things together, but we’ve never been on a film together, and yes, we’ve had offers to do things. It just hasn’t been the right thing. So when this came to us, Taylor [Sheridan] called and asked if we would be interested and then wrote this and sent this show to us. It was just like, “Wow!” [Laughs].
Tim McGraw: Oh, that was incredible to watch her every day. It’ll be 26 years this year we’ve been married. Both of us have spent 30 years in the music business, making music. She’s done a few movies, I’ve done a few movies, but we never acted together. To play husband and wife on-screen with such a phenomenal script, such a well-written script that was so dramatic and had so much character and depth to it was pretty spectacular. To watch her every single day and to watch the work that she did and to be in scenes with her, where she constantly surprised me every day and, and up my game. She made me better, everything I did every single day. That was the biggest reward out of it.
Hill: We felt so grateful and blessed to be able to, first of all, have the opportunity to do it and work on something that’s one of the best things you’ve ever read. We’ve read a lot of things, a lot of scripts, a lot of books, and it was just like, “Wow. If this is filmed and produced and if we can pull this off, as well as it’s written on script,” because it felt like a book, like a novel, “This is really gonna be amazing transformative actually.” So it was rewarding for both of us, and we feel very fortunate. It was hard. [Laughs]. It was really hard, but, but it was worth it, it was worth it.
McGraw: And then also when you’re working with your spouse and you get to do scenes together every day as husband and wife, and then you get to go home and lay in bed together, especially when you’ve had such a great day of shooting, when you’ve had a great scene in the euphoria that comes from having that sort of special moment, when you have a great day of shooting, to be able to lay in bed and talk about it with each other. I mean, that’s something special that rarely happens. And, I think that that was probably some of the most beautiful times that we had during the entire season is being at home at night, lying in bed, and discussing what we did during the day.
You’ve always had a worldwide audience with your music, and now Paramount+ is launching in the UK. What’s most exciting about the show reaching an even wider audience?
McGraw: It works so well in the United States, but I think even around the world, the American west has such a romanticism to it and such a nostalgia to it that, that I hope people will really latch onto it as much as everybody in the U.S. did. I think even more so because it just shows with the immigrants being such a big part of the show which I think reminds everyone, that our America was built on immigration, built on immigrants coming to our country and trying to find a better world from themselves. So I hope everybody will latch onto that and latch onto the story and the strength of character that this story shows.
Hill: It’s a Western, it’s an American story. However, it’s actually [more than that]. I mean, America is built of immigrants, on the backs of ancestors. Also, in the series, the depiction of Native Americans, and we say Indians in the series because of the time period, it was period correct [in the year] 1883. There’s a lot learned and taken away from the story that I feel is very important and facts, history, and that sort of thing. It’s important for us to know maybe how things happened, [how they] took place. Taylor did a great job in respecting the territory. So I think for it to be released here, I mean, there’re some great actors that came, literally came from this area and around in Germany, Romania, in the show. You will be very proud of them because they’re freaking phenomenal. So I think it’s something that I’m excited for everyone to see it. I’m also excited to know what they think once they see it.
