1883Yellowstone's prequel series, is ramping up to be the must-watch television event this winter. Not only is hit director Taylor Sheridan expanding the universe of his wildly popular series, but leading the cast is none other than country music sensation Tim McGraw. Playing James Dutton, the ancestor of Yellowstone's John Dutton, McGraw will help tell the story of how the Dutton's ended up in Montana. But the journey isn't an easy one, and 1883 promises the emotional drama and horse work that Sheridan is known for bringing to the small screen.

In a roundtable interview attended by CBR and other outlets, McGraw discussed taking on the role of James Dutton in 1883. The singer-turned-actor shared how he became involved with 1883 and what made his character so interesting to play. But McGraw also talked about what it was like to film alongside his wife, Faith Hill, and how the show provided an opportunity for him to return to horseback riding and his cowboy roots. Additionally, McGraw expressed what he hopes people take away from the Yellowstone prequel series.

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McGraw spoke about adjusting to the demands of not just filming a TV show, but filming one that was predominately outdoors with a large physical component, saying, "Faith and I have discussed this several times that we've worked pretty hard in our careers. We've been playing music for over 30 years and I've done films and she's done films. This is the hardest we've ever worked in our entire career. It's been a brutal schedule, but it's so rewarding, especially when you see the show and you see the results of it. It's pretty spectacular. So, at the end of the day, when you work hard and you see the results of it, it all makes sense and you feel better about what you did."

McGraw also addressed how he became involved with Sheridan's Yellowstone universe. "It was, I guess, a year ago -- it's probably longer because, during the last two or three years, I think time's gotten so skewed -- I think about a year ago, Taylor called and asked if I liked Yellowstone," McGraw said. "I had never met Taylor before, and I said we loved Yellowstone from the very first day. And then he said, 'Well, I'd like you to be on the show.' Then I said, 'I'd like to be on the show but I want to come up with something really different and cool.' I don't want to be just some singer that comes through the bunkhouse and gets taken to the train station. He said he had an idea. He called me a week later and told me about this flashback part of being in the 1880s and being the original Dutton that founded Yellowstone ranch. That intrigued me right off the bat, so I said, 'Yes, I'm in for that.' And we shot the flashback stuff."

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"A couple of months later, he called me and said he was about to go into a meeting," McGraw continued. "He thinks the network wants to make a prequel based on these flashbacks. You go through all the business discussions about getting the deal right and all these kinds of things. I said, 'We get everything right, then we're in.' Then he started sending scripts and when we got the first couple of scripts, it was magic, just beautiful stuff. He's such a talented writer. When you get something like that -- it's the best thing I've ever read. All the scripts I've read, including books that I read and everything, this is one of the best things I've ever read. When we got that stuff, when we get started reading the scripts Faith and I together, we knew that we wanted to be a part of it. We knew we had to be a part of it. Then when Sam Elliott came on board, you got Taylor, a great script, I get to work with my wife, get to ride horses all day, and then Sam Elliott's onboard? That's a box that it's hard to get out of. "

Part of what makes the casting of 1883 so compelling is that McGraw got to work alongside his wife, Faith Hill, ensuring their chemistry would allow the characters' chemistry to shine on-screen. McGraw spoke about the joys of working alongside Hill, saying, "It's great working with your wife and spending time every day and being on set together. The best part about having your wife there is you get to go home every night together. Had this not been this kind of show to work together, I would be away from home all the time. This has been what, four months? It'll be five months when it's all over -- six days a week, 12 hours a day. I would have never seen her and would have never gotten home. She might be happy about that but I wouldn't have been."

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Tim and Faith portrait in black and white

Aside from just ensuring that the two got to spend time together, acting alongside his wife also meant that McGraw got to see her make this role her own. "It was also great to just see her as an actor dive into this role and create this character that is the backbone and the steel of this family," he added. "What she is in real life in our family, but to see her translate that into her character for this show was pretty amazing."

Of course, with singers like McGraw and Hill involved in the show, everyone's been wondering whether there will be a chance to incorporate music into 1883. McGraw replied, "That's something that's not even on our radar. This show is really about an epic score, not so much songs or anything like that." Part of this has to do with McGraw's character, James. "I can't imagine him ever singing a note," suggested McGraw. "He's not an artistic guy."

Fans of the singer shouldn't be too disappointed, however -- McGraw has channeled the series into his musical career. "I've written songs," he said. "It's inspired me to write songs. I've written songs that have a theme that sometimes revolves around some of the things that happened on the show. But it's not that kind of show. It's not a show that that's going to have anything to do with us singing."

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When asked how he prepared to take on the character, who's a father and husband but also a cowboy and war-veteran, McGraw praised the writing that allowed him to really know the man. "It was just so much was on the page," McGraw said. "Taylor is such a talented writer, so when you sit down and you read what he wrote, it all jumps out at you. It's the most complex character I've ever played, so in my mind, I just start building a backstory about James and who he is and what drives him. You can find all those things if you read between the lines. It really made sense to me. It was an opportunity to play somebody with so many different layers and play it in a way that you can read in his eyes what he's going through. That was the way I approached it."

Another defining feature of McGraw's character is his role as a father. According to McGraw, he absolutely drew on his own experiences as not only a father but a father of teenage girls. "I think as an actor, one of the things that you do, for me as an actor anyway in my limited experience, is you find pieces of yourself in the character," he said. "Then what you do is you see that character, you find pieces of yourself and then you just put a magnifying glass on those pieces that fit that character and you just blow those things up. That's what I tried to do with James."

"I have three daughters. I'm probably not as tough as James," he continued. "I'm certainly not as hard on my kids as James is -- Faith's more the disciplinarian on the kids than I am -- but there is a piece of that as a father and with your daughters, especially with boys and with their career paths and all those things, that you try to give advice and you try to pay attention to, you try to step up to as a father. Those are the things that you really magnify and bring out in your character that matches the character."

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McGraw stands in front of a barn

McGraw had the opportunity to work alongside some stunning performers, both in the main cast but also as important cameos. This included Tom Hanks, a friend of McGraw's who helped out in a Civil War flashback. "You never want to botch a scene when you got Tom Hanks in there," said McGraw. "He's a great guy. We've been friends for a long time. Rita, his wife, and Faith are best friends, and Tom and I've been friends for 25 years. I knew that there was this part in there and I gave him a call and said, 'Hey, would you be interested in showing up, doing a cameo in this show that we're doing?' And he goes, 'Tell me when to be there.'"

But 1883 is a Taylor Sheridan show, so it's not always heavy dramatic moments and interpersonal connections -- there's also cowboying. "I grew up riding horses," explained McGraw. "I could probably ride before I could walk. My stepdad was a cowboy so I spent a lot of time on horses growing up. However, over the last 20 years, I haven't spent that much time on a horse. I haven't had the opportunity or the time or even the inclination to spend that much time on a horse. So the first couple of weeks of cowboy camp was just sort of getting my seat back in the saddle. We have great Wranglers, great guys who are teaching everybody, but it came back pretty quickly. That's one of the best things about this show for me, is to be on horseback every day and to haul ass across this rough terrain and shoot bad guys -- it's every kid's dream to do that."

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The physical nature of 1883 was the main difference for McGraw as he prepped for this role. "I don't know that it's that much different than anything I've prepared for," he claimed, "other than the physicality of it. The toughest part is I'm a gym rat, so I have to be in the gym every morning. So the toughest part is being up at three in the morning, every morning, in order to make your call time. That's probably the hardest part of it is getting up at three, getting your workouts in, because there's been a couple of days where I didn't do that and the energy's not the same on set. That was the main part of the prep is keeping my mind together. My workouts are my meditation in a lot of ways. That's the time that I go over my lines in my head and I prepare for the day and try to be ready for what's going on. I try to know everyone's lines in the show, that way I can sort of feel the moment and be in the moment."

When asked what he hopes viewers take away from the series, McGraw narrowed in on the aspects of family and how the show depicts western colonization as grittier. "It's hard to put into a short phrase," he said, "but I think it's the authenticity, taking the veneer off the romanticism of the West and just making it look -- like everybody sees a Western and they think, 'I would love to live in that time. That's the time I'd love to be in.' But when you see this show, you realize the hardships, the struggle, the day-to-day survival of what these folks went through in order to take that journey across the country. I think that that's really the story of the whole show. It's certainly a story about family. It's a story about coming-of-age for Elsa and it's a story about man versus man, man versus nature, man versus himself. It's all those things combined. I think it's also a story of what the American spirit's about."

1883 premieres Sunday, December 19 on Paramount+. New episodes will release weekly on Sundays.

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