What happens when an artist’s maverick pen breathes life into a canvas of scripts? The answer lies in the wild success story of Yellowstone and its prequels. It is a testament to Taylor Sheridan’s refined vision, which captured millions of hearts, including those sitting in the Paramount+ executive suites.
With the series roping in record viewership numbers, it cultivated fertile ground for engaging spin-offs. 1883 was Sheridan’s brainchild, diligently scoring every chapter of this saga with his signature blend of grit and authenticity. The series stars Isabel May as Elsa Dutton, seamlessly stepping into the boots of a pioneering soul journeying alongside her parents, portrayed by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
But being a part of such a narrative process was no walk in the park for May. She earlier revealed; quite literally, that Sheridan’s scripts remained untouched, having spelling errors et al.
No Changes Made in 1883: The Intriguing Script Principles by Taylor Sheridan
Imagine receiving a script from a writer who, once finished, sends it straight to your inbox with no second thoughts or edits—typos and all. This was Taylor Sheridan’s modus operandi. The creator of 1883 did not believe in polishing his work after it had left his desk.
For Isabel May, who plays Elsa Dutton in the series, this meant that the script she received was unvarnished and untouched by subsequent corrections. In a nutshell, Sheridan essentially handed her the raw material of his vision, complete with zero revisions.
Over two months, May received all ten scripts, each bearing the marks of Sheridan’s first, unedited draft. The actress recounted on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast:
He would quite literally write the script and right when he wrote The End, sent it to everyone. No revisions, nothing.
This meant that May had a firsthand look at Sheridan’s creative process, and of course, she was amazed by the detail and care he put into each episode.
But she described receiving the scripts as akin to being handed a piece of herself, immortalized in ink. The detail with which Sheridan described Elsa was not just a description of a character but an echo of May’s own essence. To quote the actress:
If you read it, those are my freckles. That’s the color of my hair. Wow, that’s me that he’s putting to page. It’s kind of immortalizing something. It sent a shiver down my spine.
May, who narrated in 1883, found herself deeply moved by the experience.
1883: The Emotional Impact of Taylor Sheridan’s Unaltered Script on Isabel May
The emotional impact of Taylor Sheridan’s scripts for 1883 reached its zenith when Isabel May read the season finale. For an actress deeply invested in her role, reading the conclusion of her character’s (Elsa Dutton) journey was nothing short of heartbreaking. May confessed in the same podcast:
Then just kept getting them and then reading the end, God, I sobbed like a g** damn baby.
The finality of Elsa’s story, penned with a sense of inevitability and bare emotion, left May overwhelmed, as she recalled:
I’ve never cried that much reading something.
In a world where script revisions are as routine as breakfast, Sheridan’s decision to let his scripts stand as they were written might seem like a gamble.
Yet, for Isabel May, it might’ve been a chance to connect with the material in its purest form. Last year, the actress, 23, acknowledged to THR that she is humble about her ground-breaking role in the Yellowstone prequel series:
It didn’t feel like an explosion for me, at least. I don’t really participate in social media. But I think what’s telling is when you are at a grocery store and you bump into someone and they look at your face, and you know they recognize you, and then their eyes fill up with tears.
Ergo, Sheridan’s approach to 1883 may not have followed the well-trodden path of endless revisions and edits, but it carved out a unique space in television storytelling. The series was praised with an 89% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; thus, it’s clear that Sheridan’s unrevised scripts were a stroke of genius!
1883 is streaming on Paramount+.
