1883: Yellowstone prequel star Gratiela Brancusi on Sam Elliott & cowboy camp

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE FIRST HALF OF 1883

I’m a pretty hardcore fan of what Taylor Sheridan’s been doing on TV over the last few years. Yellowstone has, against all odds, become of the biggest hits on TV and Paramount, perhaps sensing they’ve got a goldmine on their hands has doubled down an Sheridan. He’s one of the leading lights of their new Paramount Plus streaming service, with Mayor of Kingstown recently ending its first season, and his Yellowstone prequel, 1883 set to become something of a streaming phenomenon. 

I’ve been pretty riveted by this gritty western saga so when I was given the chance to talk to one of the show’s breakout stars, Gratiela Brancusi, I jumped at the chance. On the show, she plays a Romani woman named Noemi who’s targeted by less scrupulous members of the traveling caravan journeying from Texas to Montana. She’s protected by two of the most heroic characters on the show, Sam Elliott’s Shea Brennan, and his best friend Thomas (LaMonica Garrett).

If you’ve been watching the show, particularly the episode that began streaming on Sunday you’ll know that Noemi and Thomas’s relationship is starting to get romantic, and Brancusi, who spoke to us last week, weighed in on what Thomas, as a former slave, and Noemi, as a Romani, have in common.

So I think one thing that really unites the two of them is that she was born into slavery, Roma people were enslaved in Europe for about 500 years. And, even the countries where they weren’t enslaved, they were deported and many of them were sent to the U.S as slaves. Portugal and France were sending them to their colonies here. And I think they share that. 

There aren’t a lot of stories about Romani people’s journey to the U.S although the first group of Romani people came with Columbus… And I was reading that there were many marriages between Romani people and black people, because they were probably on plantations and they shared in what they were subjected to.

As Brancusi states, the story of the Roma people in the old west hasn’t really been told, which is another thing that makes Sheridan unique as a storyteller. Some may pigeonhole him as one thing, but he’s always shown a passion for tackling difficult, untold stories.

Brancusi mentioned that the show only recently wrapped shooting the first season, and that to get everyone into the period, they had to undergo “cowboy camp”. 

I so loved it. We were riding horses and driving wagons and roping all day long, for about two and a half weeks.And I remember when we had sort of our graduation, we had to push cattle. So we did the cattle and I remember Taylor saying this is either going to make them or break them. And we did pretty well and we did better than I thought we would do. It was so fun. Cowboy camp was some of the most fun I’ve ever had.

Brancusi also had high praise for her fellow castmates, with her saying co-star LaMonica Garrett “always manages to see the positive and it’s good being around that kind of energy.”

As for Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, who play the Duttons, she says they’re “wonderful down to earth people.” She mentioned that their children joined them on set, and Brancusi called them the “kind of dream family that you want to have, you know?”

Of course, she also praised the great Sam Elliot:

I can’t imagine a person being kinder than that. Both as an artist and as a human, he was so supportive of me and the other people on set, in a way that I really want to absorb all of that and just sort of spread it. It’s just the way he makes everyone feel so seen and he’s very low maintenance. He speaks for the voiceless, which is something that I really love about him. And he takes on battles for people who are not in the position to fight any battle.

Overall, sounds like a great set to be on and I can’t wait to see what else Sheridan and company have in store for 1883 now that the season is at about the mid-way point.

You can catch up on 1883 on Paramount Plus. New episodes drop every Sunday.