00:00Michelle, Kurt obviously looks so at home in the West, but this is really your first
00:04foray into the genre.
00:06What appeals to you at this point in your career?
00:09I have been wanting to do a television show for a long time.
00:15I've been kind of looking for something, because there's just so much good work being done.
00:22For me, the best female performances are happening on television, and especially in my kind of
00:29age range.
00:32And you know, Taylor has a pretty good track record, and it's always about timing.
00:37I think he came to me about this, he hadn't even really written a word.
00:41I went to Texas and went to his ranch and had a couple tequilas, and he laid it out for
00:47me.
00:48And I thought, I liked the concept, and I thought, well, I think he's a good person to lay a
00:57bet
00:57on.
00:57And I know you also spoke to Helen Mirren before.
01:00I did.
01:01Well, because I didn't have any scripts or anything, and I thought, this is like middle
01:06of nowhere, this is Montana, I'm going to have to relocate for a long time.
01:10So, I was trying to find out as much information as I could.
01:14And yeah, I don't know Helen, but we reached out to her, and she was gracious enough to speak
01:21to me.
01:21And she just said to me, scripts are brilliant.
01:26Don't seem much of Taylor, but you don't need to, because you don't need to change anything.
01:30Productions are best productions I've ever worked on.
01:35And I thought, okay, well, that's a pretty high recommendation.
01:39Kurt, did you need the same level of convincing?
01:41No, no.
01:42He had scripts to read.
01:43Yeah.
01:44My script was, I was there.
01:45She took a leap of faith.
01:46That's the first, that's the first move that has to be made.
01:50No, I was in a situation where scheduling-wise, I was wanting to do it, but didn't know if
01:56we were going to be able to.
01:57They were able to work it out.
01:58And I had four scripts to read, plus I knew Michelle was playing Stacey.
02:02So it was easy for me, I had, you know, Taylor was writing them all, she was playing Stacey.
02:08I could read it and see it, and there was nothing not to want to be a part of.
02:12And we had to wait almost two whole episodes until we see Preston in the bath with Stacey.
02:17And it's a wonderful scene where they talk about Abby and their different styles of parenting.
02:22Can you talk to me about that scene and were they able to keep the water warm while y'all
02:26were in there?
02:26It was physically hard, because it was a huge bathtub.
02:30I actually didn't like the way it was shot.
02:33We should have been higher up in the bathtub and we could have, but I'm not going to complain
02:37about it.
02:38But I thought it was a sweet scene.
02:40And physically it was hard to do.
02:42I remember putting my legs around your hips and we couldn't, we kept sliding down.
02:49I had, plus I had your foot.
02:50Those things are never good.
02:52So I thought your foot's going up here.
02:56It was physically hard to do that scene.
02:58Yeah, it was.
02:59Michelle, you have to carry the memory of Stacey and Preston's love story in the present,
03:03which is a huge undertaking, even though it is aided by flashbacks.
03:07Can you talk about crafting their love story from the beyond?
03:11And sort of, Kurt, how did you help support her?
03:13It really helped to have known Kurt and worked with him.
03:18And when you work with people, you get to know them really well, bond, you become friends.
03:24And he was my confidant and my biggest supporter.
03:28And so when they cast him, they were kind of this name, that name, we're just kind of, yeah, okay.
03:37And then Kurt's name came up and it was like, oh my God, yes, it has to be Kurt Russell.
03:41But I ended up having to shoot the first season without him, my side of things.
03:47So somebody was reading his lines off camera for me.
03:50So, but you could totally hear.
03:53I think he did write it with maybe Kurt in mind.
03:57You could completely just hear Kurt's voice in those words.
04:02Yeah, he did write it with us in mind.
04:04I didn't know that.
04:05I didn't know that until just recently.
04:08But when I read it and Michelle was going to do it, I thought, well, that's just right.
04:12And then I started reading it from the point of view of playing press.
04:15And I was like, well, it's pretty close to home here.
04:19It was, yeah, I mean, he captured it.
04:22It's always one thing to read something and then try to execute it.
04:25And the execution this time was, I know from him that the execution was what he was hoping to see.
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