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Taylor Kitsch Never Expected a Happy Ending From American Primeval

Spoilers follow for the Netflix miniseries American Primeval, which premiered on January 9. 

In American Primeval, Isaac Reed is a classic western hero and a classic Taylor Kitsch character. He’s laconic and no-nonsense, good with a gun and his fists, and ultimately a gentleman, the kind of hard-edged, squishy-cored character Kitsch has been playing since his breakout role as the loyal, tortured, smoldering Tim Riggins on beloved series Friday Night Lights. Isaac has a traumatic past and a secret sensitivity that endear him to the travelers he’s guiding west, Sara Holloway (Betty Gilpin) and her tween son, Devin (Preston Mota), and each come to see him as the husband and father, respectively, they wish they had. But in a finale scene that has viewers pissed, Isaac is killed defending Sara and Devin, an ending that denies the suffering character a second chance at life and love. Kitsch has seen the various complaints — and he’s taking them as compliments.

“We’re all flattered that people are that receptive to this show,” says Kitsch, whose starring role in American Primeval is another entry in his nearly 20-year collaborative relationship with director Peter Berg. (They worked together on Lone Survivor, Battleship, Painkiller, and yes, Friday Night Lights, the reboot of which Kitsch is simultaneously weary and willing to talk about.) “I’d rather have you fucking truly upset that I die than not feel anything at all. Then I didn’t do my job.”

The six-episode miniseries from The Revenant writer Mark L. Smith is set in the Utah Territory in 1857 and traces the violence and tension between various groups grappling for power. Mormon settlers will stop at nothing to overthrow the U.S. government, and travelers Sara and Devin are only able to escape their murderous attack with Isaac’s help. The U.S. military is trying to contain the Mormon threat while forcing Native tribes off their land and onto government-mandated reservations. And the Shoshone, who raised Isaac after he was sold to them, are facing a two-pronged threat of extermination by the Mormons and harassment from the U.S. government. Kitsch’s character straddles the series’ white and Shoshone worlds, and he learned about the tribe’s customs and rituals by visiting Wind River reservation and working with the series’ Indigenous consultants. “They were incredibly open with me, which helped a lot,” Kitsch says from his home in Montana. “One thing you can’t screw around with is getting that right.”

The show is structured so we get little pieces of Isaac’s backstory throughout. We eventually learn he grew up among the Shoshone and that his wife and child were killed. Did you come up with any other history for him, either individually or with Peter and Mark?  We chatted a lot about it. I’m in my little office and a lot of my research is around here. I remember flying to L.A. with probably ten books and all these notes to sit down with Pete and talk about how I wanted to root Isaac. With anybody that I’ve worked on, I hung my hat on his upbringing because those are the most formative years of anybody’s life. With the Shoshone aspect, it’s trying to understand that culture and the way he would have grown up and anchor the weight of the loss of his family and the weight of mourning. The only way he could see them again is to cross over honorably. That’s an aspect of the Shoshone community, and that’s what I really paid attention to. That led me to the Wind River reservation and working with them. They don’t really care — they shouldn’t — about me, and I’m coming in and talking to this elder and another adviser and asking these really intense personal questions. I think 20 minutes in, I was like, “The way you guys honor and bury your loved ones, is it different if it’s a warrior?”

What were some of the books you consulted?  I’ve got one here, it’s called Becoming Brave: The Path to Native American Manhood. This one explains that everything is circular. There’s no ending in life or death. You cross over. When Devin said, “They’re dead,” I added, “They’ve crossed over.” That line meant an enormous amount to me. Pete was fine with that, and so was Smith. I have this as well: Native American Clothing: An Illustrated History. We were really working on the wardrobe and including the Shoshone colors. I wanted a couple things my wife would have made me that I’m holding on to. He’s an amalgamation of a white guy and the Shoshone, and I wanted to represent that.

You went to Wind River and also worked with a Shoshone language specialist. How did you approach learning the dialogue?  There’s a very easy stereotype you can go into, that all Native tribes speak in this cadence, and they broke that quite quickly. That was day one. Then, it’s phonetically. I have massive whiteboards that I started using for Waco, for these crazy monologues and all the written Bible verses that DaveKitsch played cult leader David Koresh, who died in the controversial 1993 siege on the Branch Davidians’s Texas compound, in the miniseries Waco. would knock out. For this, as well, I’d write them on my whiteboard all over my house, with the English version of it. I was always trying to add more Shoshone, because I loved it and I felt more like Isaac when I got to do that than I did when I was speaking English.

As far back as Friday Night Lights, you and Peter have talked about your collaborative partnership. He’s open to you suggesting dialogue and motivations for your characters. Here, you pitched the scene in episode two where you and your mother, White Bird, played by Irene Bedard, speak in Shoshone about the emotional pain you’re living with. Tell me about that.  For me, that was the most beautiful scene of the show for Isaac’s journey. It’s so important to show he is so fucked up by this whole thing. Otherwise, you’re just playing this lazy, grumpy guy. As an actor, you’re always trying to give more to these characters. With every character I’ve played, I’ll write a whole document on who are you when you’re speaking to someone? Who are you by yourself? When you pitch, you gotta bring all the ammo. You gotta have it prepped. Originally it was about Red Feather and him having gone rogue,In American Primeval, one of the conflicts within the Shoshone community is between Winter Bird and her son Red Feather (Derek Hinkey), who has broken away from his family and is leading his own renegade band called the Wolf Clan. Winter Bird believes that Red Feather’s guerrilla warfare against the Mormons, settlers, and other white people in the Utah Territory has made the situation more dangerous for the rest of the Shoshone, and the pair’s arguments about tactics provide different Shoshone perspectives within the series. and more exposition. I felt this moment could be a lot heavier for Isaac. It’s the first time I go back since I’ve lost my family. He’s carrying guilt he doesn’t know what to do with. I got it written in Shoshone and FaceTimed Pete. Mark was incredible with me. He was like, “With the research you’ve done, you’re now Isaac. I trust you.” That’s really empowering, because he’s such a great writer. But it was best idea wins.

Some fans of the show are angry that you die in the finale. It goes from being a very soft moment with Betty Gilpin’s character, in which you two kiss, to a very sad moment after you defend her and die in front of her. How did you film that?  It’s the time, right? That’s 1857 in a nutshell, pure survival, moment to moment. There are not many happy endings. In the scene right before the kiss, where she’s saying about California, “Are you sure you don’t want to go?” — it’s a guy who just couldn’t let go. It felt more organic to be that way, rather than, “Let’s just go to California, and maybe we’ll strike gold and get rich.”

Pete and I, there’s such a trust. We had rehearsed, and that’s one of the last scenes we shot. Pete gave me a sick note. He was like, “Isaac is this fucking raw animal.” You hear about how, in a wolf pack, sometimes they’ll leave the pack and go die. He was like, “I want that moment with Gilpin, but it’s also watching this guy go die and come to terms that he’s crossing over, and as honorable as it is, there’s still this fear of did he do enough to go to his family?” That’s where the emotional part of it is, the way I played it. There are two cameras handheld by Brett and JohnnyA-camera operator Brett Hurd and camera operator John Garrett., and they’re right there with me following, and Pete is like, “End up at that rock, and we’ll get it.” We did four or five takes. You live for those scenes, of trying to end on a real note.

You’re a photographer and you’re a fan of wolves, so I’m going to ask you a silly question. The scene in which the wolves break through the walls of the cabin to try to eat Devin and Two Moons: Did it feel to you like anti-wolf propaganda?  It felt like movie magic, man. [Laughs.] I was tracking yesterday, by the way. I didn’t get to him, but I did get some tracks. Look at this. [Moves camera to show a photo of wolf pups hanging on his wall.] I took that photo.

Did your interest in photography start because of The Bang Bang ClubIn the 2010 film, Kitsch played photojournalist Kevin Carter, who died by suicide in July 1994, months after winning a Pulitzer Prize for his feature photography coverage of the 1993 famine in Sudan.? Yeah. I was interested but intimidated so I never engaged. I’m going to Patagonia in early February to try to get some puma shots with two of my best buddies. It’s a great escape, and creatively, no one’s telling me what to do, what shot to take. I love that part.

For the wolf part, I do remember doing cowboy camp and meeting the 70/30 wolf dogs they had. It’s funny, because there are carcasses out front that Isaac had killed. They probably would have stopped if they saw those carcasses before breaking and entering.

I have to, of course, ask you about Friday Night Lights.  Mm-hmm. I know.

You’ve said that maybe you would play an opposing team’s coach on the reboot in development. Do you have a dream story line for Riggins?  You guys give this so much more thought than I do. A dream scenario — I see Rigs divorced, maybe a kid or two. I’d like to see where Billy and him are at. There aren’t many options. I do think he would probably end up coaching. Maybe still battling alcoholism, knowing him. Obviously a little older and wiser. I think he would make a good coach, and I think Riggins would care maybe too much.

You’ve joked you “need to do a fucking rom-com.” Do you have a favorite rom-com, or a certain rom-com story line you would want to play?  Damn. [Pauses.] There are two ways to go about this. I’d love it if it’s something with Danny McBride, doing a comedy like that. Eastbound and Down, that would have been a blast. But a rom-com, shit. It’d have to be obviously opposite a terrific actress. What are the Linklater ones? It’s not very rom-com-y, the long walk-and-talks?

The Before trilogy.  Yeah, something like that. I don’t see myself running through an airport to stop her from getting on a plane. [Laughs.] I think I’d just let her and be like, “Fuck it, I gotta move on.” You’ll know when you know, when one comes. I got a concussion from the last job, a broken foot. It’s like, I gotta give my body a break here. I got a heat pack on my lower back as we speak. I’m kinda beat up.

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“I don’t know that he gets enough credit for how hard he works and how much he invests himself in these roles. He comes onto that set deeply invested… I never have to worry about his commitment and his willingness to push himself and to explore the art of acting.” -Peter Berg on Taylor in ‘American Primeval’

Photo by: Justin Lubin

‘American Primeval’ continues its run in the top spot on Netflix and was the most-watched TV series on the platform last week with a combined 24.7 million views since it debuted.

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A few behind the scenes photos from the set of 'American Primeval'

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‘American Primeval’ Director Peter Berg on Finale Deaths, the Prequel Spinoff He’s Considering and ‘Friday Night Lights’ Reboot

A few excerpts (which contain spoilers!) from from Pete Berg's interview with 'The Hollywood Reporter' that pertain to Taylor specifically, the entire article can be found at the link.

The show reunites Berg and Kitsch, who’ve collaborated on a number of projects over the years, most notably Kitsch’s breakout role in the sports drama Friday Night Lights (which is getting a reboot at Peacock), and movies such as Battleship and Lone Survivor. “I like finding people who I am comfortable with, who I can get a shorthand going and who I know aren’t gonna be pushovers and are gonna challenge me and force me to work harder and think about things a bit deeper than I might normally, and Kitsch is on the top of the list for that,” Berg tells The Hollywood Reporter when speaking about American Primeval. “I don’t know that he gets enough credit for how hard he works and how much he invests himself in these roles. He comes onto that set deeply invested and expects me to be as deeply invested as he is in every moment, and if I’m not, he’s real quick to make sure that I am,” Berg continues. “I never have to worry about his commitment and his willingness to push himself and to explore the art of acting.”

It was also devastating to see Isaac’s character be killed in the very last minutes of the finale after guiding Sara, Devin and Two Moons almost completely to their original destination. Did you always see that as the ending?

We started the show without knowing exactly who’s going to live and who’s going to die at the end, and up until maybe two weeks before we got close to the ending, we didn’t know. Everyone was on the table. No one was safe, and I mean that, like no one. Mark and I would talk about it a lot, and Eric Newman, our other producer. I would call Bella [Bajaria], our boss at Netflix, and say, “What do you think?” And we’d be talking about the merits and keeping everyone alive or killing everyone. The ending that we picked was what we ended up thinking was probably the best. But who knows? I was sad, and Taylor was sad when we told him.

Isaac feels ripe for a prequel series. We’re talking about it right now. Good pick. That’s the way we’d go if we do it, and I don’t know if we will, but that would be the way we would go.

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Any news on a possible move. He probably moved to a yurt on the mountains 😆. Thanks for all the Taylor updates.

Answer: No yurt. He hasn't moved and still lives in Bozeman, he's recently talked about the other piece of land he purchased where he is actively turning into a sober retreat.

Question #2: I know Tay prob wouldn't but if Ryan had asked if he'd like to be in Deadpool and Wolverine, do you think he would've? I mean I like Channing and his Gambit wasn't that bad (its wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than Nick Bateman's Gambit that he does for his boring and stupid fan made movies) but I was sad we didn't see Origins Remy. What about you?

Answer: I'm not sure Taylor would say yes to doing it if asked. But unfortunately Taylor isn't in the Ryan Reynolds circle of friends like Channing is, so I'm not sure it would have made a difference one way or another.

Question #3: Does Taylor still have a RS with Jennifer? And does he still live in Austin?

Answer: Taylor and Jen seemed to break up prior to his move from Austin which was shortly after Covid started. He's lived in Bozeman now for a few years and has, from what I understand, been in a relationship for a few years now with someone he met in LA while filming 'Terminal List'.

Question #4: Hello, hope you're doing well! Wondering if you know if the Patriot Awards Gala is going to be televised/streamed anywhere?

Answer: You can watch the entire gala here:

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Taylor Kitsch for 'Interview' Magazine

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Taylor Kitsch and Josh Brolin on Shamans, Sweat Lodges, and Self-Transformation

Taylor Kitsch, photographed by Luca Bertea.

First, Taylor Kitsch moved to Montana. Then came a New Year’s Eve spent with a shaman, and now, a television show at the top of Netflix’s charts. But let’s rewind a bit. For the past two years, the Friday Night Lights alum has been getting into character. He lost 25 pounds, tracked wolves, and visited the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, all of which helped him embody the role of Isaac Reed, a Shoshone-raised white man whose contested past seeps through the cracks of history in the gritty Netflix Western American Primeval, set during the 1857 Utah War. “Some of the best work of my life is on the floor of this, and I think that’s what I struggle with,” Kitsch told longtime friend Josh Brolin, who was on set for the making of the limited series. “You were such a fucking champion for me, man.” After the show’s release, Kitsch called Brolin for moral support, again. This time, they talked about sweat lodges, shamans, and giving yourself over to a role.—EMMA STOUT

JOSH BROLIN: Tell me about your sickness and then we’ll work our way up from there.

TAYLOR KITSCH: So New Year’s Eve, I had this Native sweat lodge planned and I was hosting three of my good buddies. Jake Picking came in.

BROLIN: Really? That’s great. He seems so open to doing anything and everything.

KITSCH: His first Native sweat, and he needed it, too. I think everyone did. I had terrible back pain and these crazy headaches, but I rebounded long enough to be able to drive to the sweat lodge. Then I got home and it absolutely nailed me.

BROLIN: Do you think it was like whatever toxin living inside you and the sweat brought it all out?

KITSCH: I think so. There’s some energy I wanted to get out, obviously. But the shaman was like, “We don’t really have to read into this one. Whatever’s happening right now, it’s—”

BROLIN: It’s coming out.

KITSCH: Yeah.

BROLIN: That energy… I assume I know what it is. And that’s the idea of doing this limited series.

KITSCH: Yeah, you were there for some of it. It’s been a tough one, man.

BROLIN: Tell me why.

KITSCH: Because I cared so much. Not that that’s a problem, but it’s hard to let go. You have these ideals—you’re serving the Shoshone community— and you put in all that work. But it did really help me, understanding that it was my journey and it wasn’t. I put a little more responsibility on other people to service the same thing. That released a lot of tension because I’ve been torn up by it. 

BROLIN: It’s a very different subject. You and I did Only the Brave together, which meant a lot to me because I was a volunteer firefighter. I took that script to my chief, who’s a firefighter in Tucson, Arizona, and I asked him, like you would a shaman, “Do you think I can do this?” And he said, “I think you’re the only person who can do this.” But the point is, I cared so much about it that I needed somebody who I respected in the nucleus of that world to tell me that I could represent it well. And nobody saw that movie, by the way. That’s one of those things where you go, “I still served and cared and gave myself 1000%.”

KITSCH: You really did.

BROLIN: That’s all you can do. I saw the first two episodes and it blew me the fuck away, which I’ll get into. You care, though. That’s the point. You’re purging now because you care so much. You seem to be one of the most empathetic people that I know, way more than me. 

KITSCH: I don’t know.

BROLIN: Well, I give a shit about the role and the story and morale on set. But I think you take it super fucking personally, especially representing Native Americans. I had a whole relationship in my 20s with a shaman in Tucson that I was spending a lot of time with. I was doing sweats all the time—

KITSCH: Amazing.

BROLIN: It was amazing. Now, seeing you go through that, you seem like the most unapologetically vulnerable person that I know. When I hear about you tracking wolves in Montana, it makes sense to me. I go, “Yeah, it’s Kitsch. Fucking out there, doing his thing with a camera.” You want to get as close to the experience as you can, and that’s who I know you to be.

KITSCH: Man, when they asked for this interview, I was like, “There’s only one person we can truly ask.” Obviously, you helped me a lot during the shoot and being there. But to represent this process, which was quite intense, it makes you go down that road again. You were such a fucking champion for me, man. I remember I was feeling pretty shitty, and you knocked on the door. I was like, “Who the fuck?” And it was you and the girls waiting to come in and hang out. How are they doing?

BROLIN: They’re amazing. They’re bigger personalities than I am. They’ve taken over the world.

KITSCH: That’s a big feat, but damn.

BROLIN: Yeah, I know it was a tough time for you. You lost a ton of weight for the role. It felt like, “I don’t want this to be just another role. I want this to mean something.” I just wrote a book, and it’s a very unconventional book. 

KITSCH: Fucking right. I remember you reading a passage on the patio.

BROLIN: If you’re spoon-feeding people what they’re looking for, you can sell a lot of books. But if you write like I do, or act like you do, you’re picking roles for reasons that are very personal. You want to bleed. You want to earn it. I know it’s a rarity, but without that, what do you have? So when I see you in that place, there’s a part of me that’s happy because it’s like, “This tortured motherfucker, he’s fucking downward spiraling. But thank god you exist.” Tell me what the experience was like for you, because I watched it and I thought you were great. And I’m pissed that I can’t see more yet. It’s chaotic, it’s visceral, it’s violent, it’s hard to watch.

KITSCH: I think it should be all those. Man, it was a fucking roller coaster. The Shoshone and learning a lot of that—

BROLIN: Learning the language.

KITSCH: Yeah, it changed my perspective a lot. Working with the advisors and the dialect coaches, getting an opportunity to do something so raw in a period where most fights ended hand to hand, I loved it. There’s no karate chopping, no spinning wheel kicks. 

BROLIN: That fight that you have with that guy is fucking amazing. You’re like, “Oh my god, somebody must have gotten hurt.” And you don’t get that a lot when you watch those movies.

KITSCH: No. I mean, when the Native jumps off that cliff, it’s so practical to just roll cameras. We padded—not literal pads—but just put more snow and cleared out the rocks in the little passage towards the river. He was like, “Make your way over to that riverbed.”

BROLIN: And that’s it?

KITSCH: Yeah. I mean, that guy was huge too. He probably had 80 pounds on me. Big boy.

BROLIN: You had lost how much weight? 

KITSCH: 25 [lbs]. I just wanted Isaac to outwill you. He wasn’t the biggest guy. He kind of wanted to die, but had to honorably go. So that’s why he fought the way he fought. It was more of his will than just his strength or knowing how to really fight. That was fun. Betty Gilpin is incredible, and Shea Whigham.

BROLIN: Shea is great. And who’s the main girl? I don’t know her very well, but I thought she was great.

KITSCH: Yeah, Betty Gilpin. A gamer who’s just uninhibited and really prepared.

BROLIN: Are you happy the way it turned out?

KITSCH: I mean—

BROLIN: Have you watched the whole thing?

KITSCH: Yeah.

BROLIN: You’re still in it, man. If you said you were happy the way it turned out, I would be suspect. There’s only one movie I’ve ever done that I’m happy it turned up.

KITSCH: Oh my god, really?

BROLIN: Yeah. And that was No Country [For Old Men]. I thought it was going to be a joke.

KITSCH: You know No Country is top three for me.

BROLIN: I didn’t know that. But I want to take this in another direction because I don’t know if people know what you do. You live in Montana, and you haven’t lived in Los Angeles for a long time. Why? 

KITSCH: I think it’s a little self-preservation. Knowing yourself well enough to know what you need. A lot of it actually goes back to what raised me, the things I know, with the ranch and everything. I was riding my moto through Yellowstone and I was like, “Oh, I love this place.” Next year, we put it on the trip again. I’m like, “Oh, man, Bozeman’s a fucking cool town.” Then all of a sudden you’re in Austin, Texas, in your dream home and you feel like you should be there now. You just answer to it.

BROLIN: That’s where you’re different—most people don’t answer to it. Most people go, “God, I went to Bozeman. That was really cool. I’d like to live there someday, but I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing because it’s comfortable.” Going back to the stoics, it’s like, “Comfort is your enemy.” You get complacent, you get lazy, and you start worrying about what the size of your trailer is. 

KITSCH: Truly.

BROLIN: How do you represent humanity if you’re doing that? Because that’s not humanity.

KITSCH: Especially with [American] Primeval, I met a guy who lost everything. His dad passed when I was playing a guy in mourning, which was kind of fucking crazy. But while I was prepping, it meant more. I was like, “This is all they had.” Family was their education, their language, their heritage.

BROLIN: And there’s no decision to even use that. 

KITSCH: Right. I didn’t need to. I had done all the work. I tell you, some of the best work of my life is on the floor of this, and I think that’s what I struggle with. But to that point I made earlier, just because the world won’t see it doesn’t mean you didn’t serve it. I think I told you this, but I cried more in that one scene than I did when I lost my fucking dad—

BROLIN: Yeah, you did.

KITSCH: The energy of the Shoshone and what they’ve gone through, I felt like they were with me. It was really a beautiful thing. But, I don’t know, I go back and forth. When you’re prepping, you see it in your head. You see the arc, and you see these moments. Of course, there’s going to be some beautiful ones that are unexpected. But when you feel your service didn’t go towards something, it feels like, “I just gave up two years of my life, got this fucking bone cut out of my foot, did all this crazy shit”—

BROLIN: And you go, “For what?” But there’s no version of this, I think, that ever would’ve gone, “Fuck, I’m psyched how it turned out. It’s perfect.” It just doesn’t work like that. I used to do this thing where people would say, “Hey, I saw you in this.” And I would just shit on their reaction. After 40 years, I don’t do that anymore. My business is to do what I do and care about it and give myself to it entirely. When it’s over, I’ve got to deal with my own demons. You don’t know how people are going to be affected by it. I was affected. My wife, by the way, saw it with me, and she was super into it.

KITSCH: Betty, she’s the audience.

BROLIN: What movies have you seen that you’ve liked lately?

KITSCH: Fuck, I’ve been watching a lot of these true-crime docs. It’s so hard not to get so invested in those. I just watched the Jude Law one with the white supremacist. He’s terrific in it.

BROLIN: Really?

KITSCH: I like to see him just unabashedly fucking gritty. The Order, it’s called.

BROLIN: I was way behind on movies, and I saw a movie called Sing Sing last night.

KITSCH: I know that movie.

BROLIN: It takes place at Sing Sing, which is one of the oldest prisons in the United States, and it’s based on this guy who was in prison for robbery for 17 years. He started a theater community in the prison, so he wrote it. He plays a supporting part, and I met him on Jimmy Kimmel. I was bawling.

KITSCH: No shit. So why are you in London?

BROLIN: I left my family. I am just tired of it. I just want to be alone. You know what I’m saying?

KITSCH: You’re just in a white-out hotel room in London.

BROLIN: It was funny because I came in here to get my key and the guy goes, “Can I tell you something? The room you’re in is Ridley Scott’s favorite room.” I go, “I don’t care, it’s my favorite room.” It was such a funny thing to impart. But I’m filming Running Man with Edgar Wright.

KITSCH: Fucking yeah.

BROLIN: It’s fun. I like him. He’s weird, and I like weird.

KITSCH: Unreal, man. Congrats. You’re there for a while then, huh?

BROLIN: I’m here for three weeks, and then I’m out.

KITSCH: I love it. They’re shooting you out.

BROLIN: They’re shooting me out, and I get back home.

KITSCH: You deserve that, by the way. Fucking right.

BROLIN: I got to get back to my motorcycles and my children. My children were going to be here and then at the last moment I was like, “For real I’m going to be working the whole time. It’s super cold right now. You’re going to be walking in the rain looking at parks and shit.”

KITSCH: Darkness. Are these sets just insane?

BROLIN: Insane. And I was just here doing Knives Out with Rian Johnson.

KITSCH: I met him a couple times now and I hear he’s fucking awesome.

BROLIN: He’s literally my new favorite person. The most unassuming guy who has total control over his set. He sits there smoking a cigar every morning. And I go, “Why don’t you wait until night?” He says, “I don’t know, I just like them in the morning.” He’s completely his own self. But yeah, I’ve been working in London a lot, and I like it here. I love the culture, and I love fucking with the people. It’s all good.

KITSCH: That Imperial War Museum is one of the best things I’ve ever done. It’s just incredible there.

BROLIN: Yeah, it’s really something. I love you, pal.

KITSCH: Love you, man. Thanks for doing this.

BROLIN: I think you did fucking phenomenal. You continue to be amazing, and you’re one of those people that gives themselves entirely. You’ll be all scraped up and scarred up by the time you get to the end of your life, and I’ll be there laughing.

KITSCH: That means a lot.

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For 20 years, Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch has been disappearing into his roles, whether it be a high school football player in 'Friday Night Lights' or a loner frontiersman in his latest series 'American Primeval.' He joined Tom Power to talk about the intense preparation he does for his roles, why he thinks of acting as service, and his thoughts about appearing in the upcoming 'Friday Night Lights' reboot.

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Behind the scenes on the set of 'American Primeval'

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Taylor sits down with Henrik Lundqvist

On the latest episode of Club 30, Henrik + Jay catch up with their old friend, actor Taylor Kitsch. They bond over their shared love of hockey, reminiscing about playing late-night street hockey and riding motorcycles together. Taylor talks about his latest project, creating a rehab center for veterans and children in Montana, and his passion for tracking wolves in the wild. He also talks about what it’s like to be injured on set, giving his insight into the often-overlooked challenges of the industry. Plus, we hear all about his new show American Primeval. Don’t miss this one—it’s packed with powerful stories!

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“It was such a gift as an actor, honestly, to work with him. I would say those were the scenes that I felt most excited about.” -Betty Gilpin on working with Taylor on American Primeval

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Collider’s own Steve Weintraub had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Gilpin and Kitsch to talk about all things American Primeval. Together, they discussed working in freezing temperatures at extremely high altitudes, the admiration and curiosity each has for one another’s innate acting skills, and Berg’s off-the-hip, wildly intense style of direction.

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Taylor Kitsch is happy he never became the next big action hero

The "Friday Night Lights" star was once on the brink of movie stardom. A decade later, he'd rather be unrecognizable in his roles.

When Taylor Kitsch finally shows up onscreen in his new Netflix show "American Primeval" about 10 minutes into its premiere, one of the first things the audience sees is his bare butt.

Those who know Kitsch from his breakout role as Tim Riggins in the mid-2000s NBC series "Friday Night Lights" would be forgiven for assuming this shot is playing into Kitsch's former teen heartthrob status. But in "American Primeval," Kitsch is far more interested i nakedly depicting the roughness of life in the 19th century American West than in providing eye candy to nostalgic millennials.

The streamer's gritty miniseries is blood, dirt, and warfare on an epic (and expensive) scale, chronicling the brutal 1857 clashes between the US Army, Native Americans, Mormons, and settlers in Utah Territory, with a cinematic yet deliberately unsentimental eye ("Yellowstone" this is not.)

As the troubled Isaac Reed, a white man raised by the Shosone tribe who begrudgingly agrees to guide Sara Rowell (Betty Gilpin) and her son across treacherous territory, Kitsch is all lumbering physicality and intense stares. So much so that when he's first introduced to Sara while climbing out of a river, he hardly notices or cares about the impropriety of his nude body being exposed to a stranger.

With a wardrobe comprised mostly of tattered rags and a scraggly beard obscuring the clean-cut good looks that once landed him in a 2000s-era Abercrombie ad, this is not a role one might expect from Taylor Kitsch. That's exactly the way he likes it.

"I take a lot of pride in taking very, very different roles," Kitsch, 43, told Business Insider, adding that being uncomfortable helps him do his best work.

"I try and chase fear and things where when you first read it, you're like, 'Oh, fuck. How am I even going to do this?'"

Kitsch was a struggling model-turned-actor who'd endured periods of homelessness when he first met "American Primeval" director and executive producer Peter Berg while screen-testing for "Friday Night Lights" in 2006.

Berg, who developed the football series based on his hit film of the same name, said he knew Kitsch had to be Riggins from the moment he saw him step out of his manager's car on the NBC lot. Though the studio had already shortlisted several hot young stars to play the Panthers' troubled running back, Berg managed to sell the unknown Canadian actor to the show's producers, and the rest is history.

The series would mark the start of Kitsch and Berg's fruitful creative partnership, which has endured for almost two decades, as the two have gone on to work together on movies like "Lone Survivor" and "Battleship" and other television shows like "American Primeval" and the 2023 Netflix series "Painkiller."

Kitsch said his symbiotic relationship with Berg has allowed him to grow exponentially as an actor.

"I hope I challenge him as much as he challenges me for authenticity, to keep each other on our toes," Kitsch said. "I think that's why he comes and brings me along on these rides. I think he knows that I will try and make him look incredible and make him look right every time he casts me."

Berg's buy-in kickstarted Kitsch's career. But six years and five seasons on the "Friday Night Lights" set ironically left him unprepared for the very thing he was expected to chase after next: movie stardom.

"'Friday Night Lights' was no marks, no rehearsal, natural light, a lot of improv, which I love," said Kitsch, who was known for sometimes scrapping Riggins' lines entirely and replacing them with just a look. "[Berg] wants you to take risks, because that's where you're going to uncover something. And I love that."

While Kitsch was able to "learn and fail" many times on "FNL," he encountered far more rigidity on the set of his first big-budget blockbuster, 2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."

"My first fucking day on 'X-Men' was like, 'Hit the mark, find the light, say your line, and don't say it like that,'" Kitsch recalled. "I've never been told this, and then it's like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. You guys are actually using lights and marks and this and that?' So it was a huge switch for me."

It was the first of many obstacles in Kitsch's ill-fated pursuit of a career as a blockbuster leading man.

Much has been made of the infamous critical and commercial flip that was "John Carter," the 2012 Disney movie about an American Civil War veteran transported ot Mars. But at the time, the decision to star in a movie based on a seminal sci-fi book series with major franchise potential seemed like a no-brainer.

Kitsch still stands by his choice: "When Andrew Stanton, who just won a couple Oscars, knocks at your door and he blows your mind in prep..."

He noted that at the time, the title character was a coveted role. "No one knows the people I beat out, but I can't believe at the time I beat them out."

"John Carter," along with "Battleship," a 2012 military sci-fi action flick based on the board game and directed by Berg, became the proving ground for Kitsch's post-"FNL" career. Expectations for both were high: Kitsch's contracts reportedly would have locked him into franchises for both if they performed well at the box office. Magazine profiles of Kitsch at the time anointed him the next big action hero, predicting he was poised to take over Hollywood's new A-list alongside the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pine.

He was on the brink of something major - or at least, that's what he was told.

Ultimately, it didn't pan out that way. Both movies underperformed at the box office and garnered largely negative reviews. It changed the course of Kitsch's career, though it may have been kismet.

In reality, becoming the next blockbuster action star was never actually what Kitsch wanted for himself; he simply thought it would open doors.

"It's the cliche: one for them, one for you," he recalled. "You're told, 'You do this, you'll be able to do anything you want.'"

In an alternate universe where "John Carter" was a box-office smash that led to that slew of sequels, Kitsch may not have had the time to explore the character-driven stories he finds the most fulfilling, like "True Detective" season two, or the biggest challenge of his career: playing cult leader David Koresh in the 2018 limited series "Waco." Kitsch credits the latter with helping him define the kind of actor he wants to be.

"'Waco' scared the shit out of me," said Kitsch. " I had no idea how I was going to do that." He spent six months intensively preparing to inhabit the role, losing 30 pounds, learning to play guitar, and watching every clip and sermon of Koresh's he could find.

He brought a similar ethos to "American Primeval," losing 20 pounds, learning some Shoshone, and working with a medicine man to prepare to play Isaac. Doing the most in a nonnegotiable for Kitsch, who previously told The New York Times that this kind of prep is "the only thing that eliminates self-doubt."

While he had to start from scratch to build out both the charismatic cult leader and the rugged frontiersman, Kitsch already had a personal connection to Glen Kryger, the opioid-addicted car mechanic he played in "Painkiller."

"That one was so fucking important to me," Kitsch said. The subject matter hit close to home; his sister has struggled with opioid addiction.

"She's eight years clean now," he said. "She was my advisor on the show, so it doesn't get more full circle than that, to have her with me, and me ironically playin the addict and her telling me how."

Despite the rabid fandom Kitsch inspired on "Friday Night Lights," he said more people have reached out to say they were touched by his performance in "Painkiller" than about any other job he's done.

"To humanize and hopefully bring up a conversation of that and to normalize it, not put shame towards that, meant the world to me," Kitsch said.

Up next for Kitsch is a return to one of his most popular roles (no, not that one). He'll be reprising his role as former Navy SEAL Ben Edwards on Amazon's "The Terminal List" prequel "Dark Wolf" opposite Chris Pratt, who plays the lead character in the flagship series.

He also wants to prioritize getting his own project off the ground: telling his sister's story.

"Her story is just, it's insane and very empowering and inspiring," Kitsch aid. "I'd love to direct that and keep it at a crazy low budget so I have creative control."

Not on the agenda? Stressing over things like viewership numbers or ticket sales.

"Here's a good story," Kitsch recalled. "I was living in Austin doing 'Friday Night Lights,' and it had just been the opening weekend of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine.' And it was Monday and I was going to a different movie, and all of a sudden, all these texts came in like, 'Oh, congratulations. Oh my God, the box office. BO is at $70-something million!' and all this," he said.

"I was with my girlfriend at the time and I was like, 'I have no idea what this means,'" he continued. "All these congrats were coming in. And I'm like, 'What are we celebrating?'"

Years later, Kitsch has held onto that desire to ignore outside expectations. He's keeping that in mind when it comes to how his new projects, like "American Primeval,' are received.

Still, he's hopeful the show will lead to more opportunities to immerse himself so fully in a character that he disappears - the work he loves best.

"We'll see what happens," he said. "I'll just keep swinging regardless.

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Betty Gilpin Praises Taylor Kitsch’s Passion and Raw Talent

“You never know what kind of actor you're going to be paired with.”

I love learning about the behind-the-scenes of making stuff. When you saw the shooting schedule in front of you, was there one day circled in terms of, “I cannot wait to film this,” and was there anything circled in terms of “How the F are we gonna film this?”

GILPIN: It became clear to me immediately, beause you never know what kind of actor you're going to be paired with. It's sort of a crapshoot of, "Is this person passionate about acting and scene work? Do they enjoy being at work? Have they memorized their lines and worked on their character? Do they want to be here, or am I gonna work with someone who can't wait to get back in their trailer?" And the first minute of the first scene I had with Taylor, it was very clear the combination of his raw talent, his passion, and his commitment to making this real and 1,000 miles deep as possible.

Looking into his eyes, I was catapulted into, "Oh, this is really happening." I had the same curiosity about him as an actor that Sara has about Isaac, so I couldn't wait to get to those scene-scenes. There's so much action, and we're on horses. Isaac is a very silent, hard-to-get-in-there character. Then there are these payoff scenes where we get to see them really connecting or trying to connect. Those felt like these little Hansel and Gretel morsels of, "Okay, there's gonna be a week of freezing your ass off and screaming and punching and galloping, but then you get this scene with Taylor on Thursday and then again on Tuesday," that kept me going, because it was such a gift as an actor, honestly, to work with him. I would say those were the scenes that I felt most excited about.

KITSCH: That is the sweetest thing I've ever been told. Thank you.

GILPIN: No problem. I just want to make you cry because I enjoy seeing your tears.

KITSCH: Very sweet.

Betty Gilpin Has an Energy Taylor Kitsch “Better F***ing Match”

"I was very grateful for that."

KITSCH: I can also echo that. With Pete [Berg]'s process, she's incredibly instinctual and very... Man, she swings. It's a very infectious energy. We shot this scene, we just kept rolling after this one really intense physical scene, and it turned into a heavy dialogue, heavy moment scene between these two characters that we were supposed to shoot tomorrow. Pete was just like, “Let's just keep rolling the cameras," tight on both of us, "Let's go. Just keep going.” And that's in the show.

It's a credit to, obviously, your prep and everything, but there's an energy when you're working with her that you better fucking match. I love that. I love the “you're coming with me, whether you're ready or not” kind of energy. For me, I just love that challenge. I think you always want to be uncomfortable, but incredibly comfortable, so you can be uncomfortable with each other. I was very grateful for that.

GILPIN: That scene, that's the Episode 2 scene after the big fight at Runty's shack where Taylor kills a bunch of people. There's the scene afterward where he says, “Who are you?” and I give him the money. That scene we were supposed to shoot the next day. I never bring my phone to set when I have an actual scene, but I was like, “Oh, we're doing that tomorrow. I'm gonna be on my phone.” I'm eating a protein bar. So, in that scene, my phone is in my pocket, and a protein bar is in the other one.

KITSCH: No way!

GILPIN: Because Pete was like, “Gilpin!” I was “Oh my God!” and ran in.

KITSCH: Really?

GILPIN: Yes! Yeah. I don't even think my phone was silenced. [Laughs]

KITSCH: Period.

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Snowed in this weekend? Great time to binge Netflix’s new number one show, ‘American Primeval’.

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'American Primeval' is now streaming on Netflix!