If you tuned into TV last Sunday evening to watch the premiere of “Y: 1883,” the prequel to “Yellowstone,” the highest rated show on television in 2021, you’ve glimpsed what Hollywood has brought to Guthrie, Texas (pop. 124).
Not since the Cartwrights held sway over Sunday nights during the sixties has a horseriding family in the American West so captivated the American psyche on Sabbath evenings. First was the modernday Western night-time soap, “Yellowstone”—in the mold of the 1980s runaway success “Dallas”—about the Duttons of Montana and the wealthy ranch family’s infighting, backbiting and intrigue, and now, its Old West prequel, “1883” featuring marquee names such as Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Sam Elliott and Billy Bob Thornton.
For months, behind-the-scenes script writing, set-building and casting brought 1883 Texas to the screen, and social media buzzed daily in Caprock Country with casting calls and celebrity sightings.
Legacy Casting of McKinney was selected by the producers of “Y:1883” to handle casting of extras. The Caprock Courier spoke with Andrei Constantineszu, its casting director, about the process.
“We’ve had six people working on ‘1883,’ including staff in Guthrie, for about eight months,” he said. “At one point we had as many as 500 extras working on the show when we were depicting Hell’s Half Acre in Fort Worth.”
About 100 extras are now working in Guthrie, and the iconic scenes filmed there represent the Oregon Trail wagon train journey of the fictional 19th-century Duttons from Texas to Montana.
Constantineszu said that most of the extras from Texas and Oklahoma and they are overnighting in Lubbock and driving back and forth to Guthrie. Production wraps in Guthrie at year’s end, he said, and overall production of the show for its first season ends in January 2022. He said Legacy Casting was not involved with the other “Yellowstone” spinoff, “6666” (the iconic real-life ranch that is already infiltrating scene in the present-day “Yellowstone”).
Constantineszu said that “Y:1883” is using the Four Sixes “as a base camp” for its production company. Taylor Sheridan, writer, actor, producer and cocreator of “Yellowstone,” represented a group that purchased the 6666 Ranch in May 2021.
The Legacy Casting director said that “Y:1883” is no longer looking for extras, but that Legacy Casting has a myriad of casting opportunities for anyone interested in appearing in TV, film or commercials and it’s free to go and create a profile at mycastingfile.com
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