Faith Hill and Tim McGraw with Audie Rick in 1883.
Emerson Miller/Paramount+
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill have worked together numerous times over the years since they married in 1996, recording songs and touring the globe. But the musicians, who have acted separately in various Hollywood projects, had never appeared onscreen together until Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan called them with a wild proposal: Would they consider playing the grandparents to Kevin Costner’s John Dutton in flashback sequences in the Western’s fourth season? As Yellowstone fans, McGraw and Hill jumped at the idea — which turned into a much bigger gig. With the Paramount Network drama gaining a rabid fan base, Sheridan envisioned a prequel series on Paramount+ that would follow James and Margaret Dutton as they travel from Tennessee to Montana, eventually establishing the Yellowstone Ranch.
The pair spoke to THR about how the authenticity of the shoot helped them get into character and the Old West skills they picked up along the way.
How did this project come your way?
FAITH HILL The phone call came to Tim. I was in the right place at the right time, married to the right guy.
TIM MCGRAW Last part’s true for sure. We were huge Yellowstone fans. We’d watched every episode from the very beginning. I got a phone call from Taylor, and he wanted me to come on Yellowstone and do a scene or two. Certainly I was interested in it, but I told him I didn’t want to be some singing cowboy that just comes to the bunkhouse and gets carried to the train station at the end of the episode. If he came up with something that was interesting, I’d be glad to do it. He said, “Give me a couple of weeks,” and he came up with a whole flashback idea: “You’re going to be the original Dutton who founded the Yellowstone Ranch, and we’re going to flash back to the 1890s.” He called me back a week later and said, “Do you think Faith would be interested in playing your wife?”
HILL I said, “What? Do I get to shoot someone?”
MCGRAW That was her main concern: “Do I get to get to be in a shootout?” So, we took a road trip, we got in our 17-year-old Cadillac Escalade and drove to Montana and spent a couple of weeks up there shooting a couple of flashbacks for Yellowstone. A couple of months later, Taylor called and said, “We showed the flashbacks to the studio and they wanted to buy a whole season. Would you be interested in it?”
It’s kind of a great audition for landing your own show.
MCGRAW It also gave us a head start in finding our characters.
Faith, I’ve read that you didn’t want to run lines with Tim at home. How did you work to keep the Duttons in 1883 and come back home as Faith and Tim again?
HILL We’ve been married 26 years. We’ve never done anything like this together. Tim’s a legit actor, and I felt the only way to bring it as authentically as I possibly could was to experience James and Margaret for the first time on set. It would have been hard to separate the two for me. It seemed to work, because Tim still surprised me when we were working together — he did things as James I didn’t expect from him. I needed that in order to be as natural as possible.
MCGRAW My thought was: People are going to have a hard time overcoming seeing Tim and Faith onscreen. We wanted to shed as much of that baggage as we could. Inherently, our relationship and our chemistry and who we are together — it’s going to be there. But we wanted to keep it as real as possible for those characters.
How did the costumes and setting help you get into character?
HILL Everything was ingeniously designed. It was difficult for the men to wear, and really difficult for the women to wear because we had corsets — and they were real corsets. I don’t know how they did it back then. The entire series was very physical, but it allowed us to become these people of 1883. The way we were trained, the saddles, the reins, everything that you saw on the wagons, on the horses … Everything was period-appropriate. To bring this world to life, that was critical, absolutely necessary, and everyone involved did such an amazing job.
MCGRAW Our call time was usually around 4 o’clock in the morning. You put on your costume, your chaps, your spurs and your gun belt, and then all of a sudden this metamorphosis occurs. I like to get to set really early, so I would drive to where we were shooting that day and just walk around in the world that we were going to be shooting in. I’d get there just as the sun’s about to come up, walking through all these wagons and these tents. It wasn’t difficult to define your spot and find your guy. It happened so organically because of the surroundings we were in.
You’re country music superstars. Did you think at all about how country music represents the American West as much as it does the South, especially when you signed on to do the show?
MCGRAW Country music originated with Irish and Eastern European immigrants, and you hear a little bit of that in the show when some of the immigrants are playing music. I did think about how country music is sort of uniquely American. Its roots come from everyday people living everyday lives and the struggles and toil that they’ve gone through. Also, we’re jumping into this world, creating these characters, and we are known for being country music singers and part of that community. There’s a part of me that didn’t want to let anybody in our industry down. I didn’t want friends to think, “Oh man, you were a good country singer until you went and did this show.” (Laughs.)
HILL I don’t think you have to worry about that. I personally never thought about any of that. I really had to let all of it go. I analyze too much anyway, that’s just my personality. And that’s the only way for me to really embrace and be Margaret as fully as I possibly could, to let go of everything that existed outside of her world.
MCGRAW We stayed off our phones most of the time for five or six months. We decided to get lost in that world, for sure.
Are you both fans of the Western genre? What’s the most exciting thing about participating in a Western production?
MCGRAW For me, certainly [it was] the story that Taylor created. We’re seeing it through the eyes of a young woman, which is something I don’t think that we’ve seen much before in the Western genre. I’m a huge Western fan. I went back and watched all the Clint Eastwood movies before we started shooting, and then knowing that we’re going to work with Sam Elliott — that was probably the most nerve-wracking. You walk on and you’re doing a scene with Sam Elliott, and he’s looking at you like, “All right, show me what you got.” I’m grateful and humbled to be able to do that and be a part of this production. It made me think about all the things I loved growing up: Gunsmoke and Bonanza. To be a part of that culture is a pretty, pretty cool thing.
HILL Yeah, our cool factor went up a lot. The authenticity was exciting for me. I understood why learning how to do these things properly really mattered, when you’re actually in the midst of filming on a horse, on a wagon, shooting the guns, all the things that we had fun training to do. It was so helpful because it became like something you’ve done your entire life. It was just part of who you were. It was like an extension of who we were and that was leaning toward it.
Were there any new skills you picked up from set? Maybe something to show off at your next dinner party?
MCGRAW Well, I grew up riding, so I was pretty prepared for the riding part. I could ride before I could walk; I hadn’t done it in a while, but it came back pretty quickly. I got pretty good with my roping skills, I have to say, so I still like throwing a rope. I’ve got one of those little fake cows where you throw a rope and mess around with that. I’m still doing it.
HILL There are a lot of skills I’d like to pull out at a dinner party, but I don’t really have a wagon sitting out in the back of the house.
MCGRAW She got really good at driving the wagon, that’s for sure.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.