By Alicia Rancilio
In Taylor Sheridan's interconnected "Yellowstone" TV shows, Sam Elliott is proud to be No. 1. His prequel "1883" was the first "Yellowstone" spinoff.
"I'm glad I was there at the beginning and not three or four or five shows down the line," said Elliott, who played Shea Brennan, a guide tasked with helping Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Isabel May's characters migrate west to settle land. The role earned him a Screen Actors Guild award earlier this year.
"1883," which debuted in 2021 exclusively on the Paramount+ streaming service, tells the beginning of the "Yellowstone" saga about Kevin Costner's John Dutton, who is the patriarch of a powerful rancher family in Montana. "1883's" 10-episodes are now airing Sundays on the Paramount Network, giving more people a chance to watch.
Prior to joining "1883," Elliott had watched a little bit of "Yellowstone" because his sister is a big fan.
"I just watched a half an hour with her one day, and it reminded me of 'Dallas,'" he said.
"I've watched more of it since we shot '1883,' mostly out of curiosity," he said. "I truly feel that Taylor is brilliant as a writer, but it's another thing maintaining the quality over the long haul."
Costner's "Yellowstone" will end in November, but the other spinoffs, including season two of "1923" and a sequel set to debut in December, will continue.
Filming "1883" wasn't easy. The weather was extreme — with heat in Texas and then freezing temperatures in Montana.
"It made it more of a challenge but it brought an authenticity to it," said Elliott. "What was it like for the people who were on those wagon trains going to Oregon back in the day?"
Then there was the homesickness, which Elliott describes as "the hardest thing about this show for me personally. It was a killer… It's hard on relationships. You can't live a relationship long distance." (Elliott is married to actor Katharine Ross.) "And I had gone through some health issues and surgeries just before we started. It was tough for me to get going."
Elliott is very familiar with playing tough, salt of the earth characters like cowboys. He starred in the movie "Tombstone" and TV movies including "The Quick and the Dead" and "The Shadow Riders."
He thinks Westerns have a relatability that captures the audience. "I've always thought there were three classic struggles in Westerns. It's man against man, man against nature and man against himself. There's a lot of people who can feel or understand that.
Elliott was especially fond of working with May and LaMonica Garrett. Of May he says, "Isabelle is just stunning. … I was so taken with her. I mean, she's just she's a lovely girl for starters and she's just brilliant. I'm eager to see where her career is going to take her."
Garrett played Thomas, a frontiersman who helps Shea on the trail. Thomas and Shea form a bond throughout the series. "Nothing ever entered into it (with their characters) that spoke of race. It was just these two brothers that cared for each other," said Elliott. "LaMonica and I hit it off right away."
When filming wrapped, Elliott kept a badge his character wore in all of his scenes.
"The prop man gave it to me on the last day," he said. "I was wearing my own spurs. I always wear my own spurs."
Elliott recently started rewatching the series on Paramount Network and said "I know that at this point in my life, there's not going to be a better one that's going to come along than this. I feel like on some level, if I quit right now, I will have done what I set out to do when I was 9 years old wanting to be an actor. I'm spoiled."
Alicia Rancilio is an AP writer
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More