The Yellowstone prequel series 1883 isn't just an excuse to milk the popular show for more storylines. The period Western stands alone as a unique tale that centers voices often silenced in Western movies and shows. Front-and-center in 1883 is Thomas, a Black cowboy and Civil War veteran who's working to accompany a group of immigrants along the Oregon Trail. Thomas is the soul of the series and is brought to life by the incomparable LaMonica Garrett.
At a roundtable interview attended by CBR and other outlets, LaMonica Garrett discussed what makes 1883 special. He shared his experiences on set, living in the cowboy culture, and working so closely with famed cowboy-actor Sam Elliott. The star also addressed the importance and precedence of depicting Black cowboys in the Western genre.
When asked what drew Garrett to 1883 and the character of Thomas, he shared, "Getting to work with Taylor [Sheridan]. Taylor is a great writer and everything he's doing right now is turning into gold so I wanted to be a part of that world. The character he wrote in Thomas is just this strong Black cowboy that in a lot of Westerns -- well, most westerns, growing up -- we didn't see. Thomas's story arc, where it's going and where it ends up, was traditionally held for characters in the genre that didn't look like me. So me being able to tell that story and representing like that, means the world to me and that's a big reason why I took it on."
Some of Garrett's coworkers commented on his strength, a key trait for the character he was playing. "The whole cowboy culture period is physically demanding," Garrett said. "It's tough, you're working outside all day. You're working with your hands all day. You're working on horses all day that might not want to do what you want them to do. Weather conditions are hard. I get up every morning before work and I hit the weights, I stretch out -- Tim [McGraw] as well. We have this competition going between me and him this whole shoot, who gets in the gym earlier. If you got to five o'clock call time, Tim's in there at three -- I draw the line somewhere. But it helps anchor me to prepare me for what the day brings because you're sitting on a horse for four or five hours. The inside of your legs are done, your butt is done, your hamstrings are done. You get out, you're walking all bowed-out... I got off my horse the other day and the set medic came over to me and was like, 'Hey, you okay? You injured?' I'm like, 'Nah, man, I've just been on this horse for four hours. I need to sit down somewhere.' Being in shape really helps for this kind of role."
Much of Garrett's work in 1883 saw him partnered with Sam Elliott's Shae. "Thomas balances Shae out," Garrett shared. "The right hand knows what the left is doing. They have a long history together: they served together in Civil War, they became Pinkerton agents together and they just have that... Close friends should be the ones to tell you the things that you might not want to hear. They just can't feed your ego or tell you you're always right. Thomas is that to Shae and Shae is that to Thomas as well. Shae can be a little impulsive, he could be a little hot-headed. Thomas balances that out. With that being said, Thomas has this kindness to him, and to me, he's the humanity and the soul of the show. But he has that hard line in the dirt of right and wrong and if you cross his code of right and wrong or respect and disrespect, the wrath of Thomas is vicious and you'll see it come out throughout the course of the season."
"I first met Sam maybe two weeks before we were about to shoot in cowboy camp.," he continued. "He saw me at the Saloon in our little bubble in the ranch that we were living at and he came over to me. He grabbed me with both shoulders, and Sam was like, 'We're gonna have a great time together,' and gave me a hug. That just -- any nerves I had of working with Sam Elliott, he got rid of all those. We became brothers over this shoot. We're going to be brothers when this is over. Sam is one of the best human beings I've ever met. He's just a kind soul and everyone he comes across, he eases the tension or whatever is in the room."
"There was a great story with Sam," he continued. "No one saw this, but it was me and Sam, we're sitting at the table... I think it was Episode 2, where we were trying to recruit cowboys. Now, they had a lot of background actors in that scene and there was a waitress that was supposed to come and pour us water in our cups. You could see her hand shaking 'cause she was nervous. This is Sam Elliott, he has that effect on people. When they said action, she came and her hand was shaking, and she kind of over-spilled. She was so distraught, she was like, 'Oh my god, people are gonna hate me. I ruined everything.' She went back to the back when they yelled 'cut.' Sam was like, 'Hey, can someone come to clean this up real quick?' They came and got it. Sam gets up -- no one sees this, I'm looking at it -- Sam gets up and walks over to her and tells her something kind, I'm sure. Whatever it was, she had this big smile on her face. The next take she came around, she had a steady hand and it was just whatever he told her, it calmed her nerves. That was the only hiccup she had the whole time."
Playing a Pinkerton Agent in the post-Civil War South was a new experience for Garrett. He described how he researched the group, stating, "I found out what the Pinkertons, their history, was, and they were bringing in Black folks, they're bringing in women. I found out they were the original Secret Service, they served under Abraham Lincoln and he was the one that vouched for them to give them the recognition to become this big agency. At one point in this country, they were bigger than the US Army. The Pinkertons have a huge history in this country. It's a lot more than what my research came to bring me to, but that did help me for what Thomas and Shae were about to encounter."
"I knew a lot about the history of the Civil War, the Buffalo Soldiers, and what it meant to Black folks and their freedom back then of having guns and the sense of pride that the Buffalo Soldier jacket represents," he shared. "That wasn't lost on me. The moment I put that jacket on -- I knew how significant it was, but it really hit me. We were in Fort Worth, shooting the scenes in Fort Worth, there's two or three hundred background actors and some of the background actors, the Black guys, came over to me and they were like, 'How's it feel, man, to wear that Buffalo Soldiers jacket?' At that moment, I knew it wasn't just significant for me. There's a lot of people looking at this and seeing how I portray this character and what it means."
Garrett discussed what it was like on the set of 1883. "We were submerged in this cowboy world," he said. "In cowboy camp, Taylor had us eating beans, rice, corn bread, beef -- I've never had more red meat than I've had working on this show, living on a ranch. But the stuff that we would eat on a trail is the stuff that they were preparing for us to eat here. It wasn't like we were getting burgers and fish, it was red meat. If you were a vegetarian on the set, I don't know what you did in Texas, period. But he was preparing us for what life would be like on the trail. We were surrounded by cowboys. We were surrounded by wranglers all throughout the day. We're doing horseback riding in the morning. We're doing wagon training in the afternoon. We're doing precision shooting with guns in the evening. We're herding cattle -- every minute was reserved for something cowboy behind the scenes. That brought us all close together, by default."
In one scene, Garrett gets a The Right Stuff-style shot walking down the street with Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, and Billy Bob Thornton. He claimed that the whole group knew when they were photographing that walk just how cool it would turn out. "We're all putting that in our office," Garrett said. "I was just talking to Billy Bob last night and he was like, 'Man, wasn't that just a cool moment?' We knew it was a cool moment when it was happening. That Tombstone moment, that Reservoir Dogs, that slow motion kind of... When you're young and you see these moments in movies, you and your friends do that moment -- you're walking down like, 'We're heading to a gunfight, we're headed to give justice. The four cowboys are walking down the street to the saloon.' It's cliched, but it happened. With Billy Bob, Tim, Mark, Sam, it was badass. It was fun in the moment and it was even more fun to watch it on screen."
When asked what he hoped people would take a way from 1883, Garrett responded, "Just different perspectives. We're seeing in 1883, they're telling a lot of stories, they're giving voices to a lot of people that didn't necessarily have voices in this show, in this genre, back. Coming across all these years of Westerns, there's storylines from the immigrants' perspectives that are unique to them, that we haven't heard about and that's still going on to this day. There's lenses of Black cowboys that you didn't see this story. We're not recreating the wheel here, but you're just seeing that wheel from different points of views. I think that seeing it from these lenses, I hope it changes people's perspectives of the time they went through and what's still going on."