Zoe Saldaña: It’s Taylor. In 2020, he reminded me that we’d met two years earlier at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel—what was supposed to be a quick meet-and-greet turned into a whole evening where we just found so much creative alignment. Two years later, we think the world is ending, and I got a call from my manager saying Taylor wanted me to read a pilot called Lioness—that he’d written it, and if I wanted to be part of it, he’d write it for me. I’m not used to really talented creatives reaching out like that. It was humbling—which is exactly why I said no and completely self-sabotaged. But a year later, I was finishing a show in Italy, looked at my husband, and said, “Is it crazy if I just text him to see if he’s cast it yet?” I texted him, and he replied, “I’m waiting on you.” Then I asked my second question: “Is Nicole still on board?” And once I knew she was, I signed on.

Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldaña. Photo: Kristina Bumphrey/JanuaryImages for Paramount+

Nicole Kidman: Taylor called me from his ranch and said he was going to do this show. I signed on, and I told him, “I want you to write something for me. I just want to speak your dialogue.” I was such a huge fan of Wind River and Hell or High Water. He told me, “I’m writing you a role”—and that’s sort of how it came together for me.

Ali Larter: I’m the opposite—he put me through the meat grinder. I auditioned [for Landman], and it was just a project I knew I wanted to be part of because of Taylor, but also because of Billy Bob Thornton, who has lived up to every expectation I had of him. Working next to him raises everyone’s game on set. But specifically with playing Angela, I knew Taylor writes these complicated, powerful, sexy, bold women, and it was exciting to embody all of that and also find the humor in it. With his writing, it was about figuring out how I could ground that. For me, it always came back to family. No matter what’s happening in our show, it always comes back to that.

Michelle Randolph: I got an email [about Yellowstone prequel series 1923], saw Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford attached, and thought, “It’s not even worth auditioning. No one’s going to watch my tape.” It’s incredibly hard to get started in this business, and Taylor and [casting director] John Papsidera took a chance on me. I got to do 1923, and then for Landman—it’s a completely different character, a hundred years apart. Taylor said he’d thought of me while writing it. I was like… thought of me while writing this? I love [my character] Ainsley so much. Getting to audition for both roles made me feel like I’d earned my place. I fought for this role, and I’m so grateful.

Beau Garrett: I knew Taylor 20 years ago when I was a struggling actress and he was a struggling actor, who was also an acting coach. A good friend put me in touch with him, and I loved him immediately. We read together for a few things and then lost touch for 20 years. Then I got an audition for [The Madison]. John Papsidera was casting. I didn’t know until recently that they’d already decided who they were casting, and it wasn’t me. John called Taylor and said, “I think you need to see this tape. I think she might be your girl, and you also know her.” I went to Wyoming, waited hours, and got the call with my mother-in-law in the car, who has no idea how any of this works. I blacked out when it was all happening. I get to work with Michelle Pfeiffer, who is such an insanely wonderful woman, and tell a story that feels so universally understood. Taylor was the reason for all that.

Photo: Kristina Bumphrey/JanuaryImages for Paramount+

Watching all of your shows, I was thinking about how these performances are set against such massive spectacle—oil rigs, war, the sheer beauty of nature. How do you think about portraying these very grounded, realistic characters who are in survival mode, set against these massive backdrops?

Larter: What’s interesting for me is that most of the time, my character is the spectacle, in terms of where the story puts her. But what I loved about the [Season 2] finale was that all we had was one of those glorious Texas sunsets—and I got to end the show with having a deep connection with Billy, and us working together to find it. So there was this spectacle of nature, but it allowed for an incredible ease and a very flowing, beautiful moment between us.

Saldaña: Playing Joe has taught me a lot about what it means to be a civil servant—to put so much of yourself aside for the greater good, to represent your country with dignity, to make sure people don’t die on your watch. There’s something very maternal about Joe’s fight-or-flight way of life that I relate to, in a much milder way—just the weight of responsibility, being extremely hard on yourself. That feels relatable when you are a woman, a daughter, a daughter of immigrants, someone who’s lost a family member, someone carrying duties bigger than yourself. The big takeaway for me personally is understanding how impartial Joe has to be when it comes to her personal views never getting in the way of her duty. I’m grateful that Taylor wrote her life to be so relatable, even up against the spectacles she has to battle day in and day out.

Photo: David Benthal/BFA

That tension feels very universal—being maternal to younger colleagues while carrying the guilt of not being the mother you want to be to your own kids. How did you internalize that, and how did you come into what Joe is processing?

Saldaña: I think she’s made peace with the fact that she’s going to sacrifice her relationship with her daughters in order to keep another woman’s daughter alive. She sees every Lioness she puts into the field as the daughter of a woman she’ll deeply respect, even though she will never know the mothers of all these women. There’s a scene in Season 2 where she gets hurt and her husband is, without saying it, asking her to give up her career. She reminds him that when he married her, she wasn’t the only one who took an oath. He took that oath with her. I’m not comparing my life to Joe’s, but there is a real sacrifice for us women to still respect our dreams while also navigating the judgment, the missed practices, etcetera. Taylor never wants me to look at Joe from 30,000 feet. He wants me to treat her life as normal, day by day. My hope is that doing it that way brings some validation to women who recognize themselves in her.Kidman: Spectacle is also the technical jargon. You have to understand every word you’re saying as if it’s everyday vocabulary, which it obviously isn’t. It has to come trippingly off the tongue. [Lioness co-star] Michael Kelly and I are always working—running lines, then stopping to define terms, definition by definition, so we always know exactly what we’re talking about. The density is real. And then there’s who [my character] Kaitlyn is: She came up through the field, worked her way up, and now she’s leading these women with a very black-and-white view: “You made a commitment to your country, I can’t account for your families, I can only keep you on track.” Pledge allegiance to the flag, and onward.

Beau Garrett, Michelle Randolph, and Ali Larter. Photo: Kristina Bumphrey/JanuaryImages for Paramount+

What does that research actually look like, Nicole?

Kidman: The fact-checking is done by Taylor and his team, but I have my own researchers working through every term I use, so I know exactly what I’m saying. It’s been incredibly exciting because it’s like I’m suddenly doing a thesis on the C.I.A. And season three especially—it’s so topical, so relevant. You’re constantly treading in these minefields and you have to keep up. I love playing Kaitlyn because I’ve never played anything like it, where it’s just so compartmentalized and every emotion is strategic. If there’s an emotional response, it’s because there’s a strategy behind it. She doesn’t have reactions that would put herself or anyone else in jeopardy. It’s always 10 steps ahead.

Beau, that idea of belonging to something larger than yourself really plays out in The Madison with your character: “How do I be here for my mother, for my daughters? how do I step into my father’s role, and also the role of father for my children?” How do you approach that kind of vulnerability, while also putting on this very tough exterior as Abby?

Garrett: When we started shooting, my daughter was 1. I’d wake up at four in the morning, look in on her, go to the gym, go to work, check in on her all day, show up every minute of the show—and then miss her bedtime. The stakes for me as a mother were so high coming into every day of work, because what I was missing mattered so much. I think there’s a part of Abby who never really found her power and never had a lot of confidence—this is the first time she’s had to step into it, and I don’t think she knows what she’s doing. She just knows her mother is fragile and that if she doesn’t hold everything together, the whole world falls apart.

Photo: David Benthal/BFA

I want to end with Ali and Michelle—the world of Landman is so easy to read as male-dominated. Big Oil, Texas, all of it. And yet the way you approach these characters, they control every scene they’re in. What’s the bubbling emotion? Disruption? Seduction? Pure control?

Larter: Joy, honestly. These women love life, and I think you see that in everything they do. If you’ve spent time with Southern women in Texas, there’s a real femininity they embrace. They’re running the household, but the other side of it is, they love getting their hair done, love a tight pair of jeans. What’s fun about playing a woman from West Texas is knowing her roots. She didn’t come from wealth. She was raising her children alone during the bust. All of that informs who she is now, at a stage of life where she’s trying to repair her family at all costs. So there’s always a high-stakes moment for her.

Randolph: For me it’s honesty. My character is so earnest—that’s the thing I hold on to above everything else. So much of it is on the page, and then so much more gets found in the room with Ali and Billy. But the core of it is: I have to play her like she is completely unaware of how she’s being perceived. She is just being honest in who she is. My process is not thinking about how it’s perceived on the outside.

Photo: Kristina Bumphrey/JanuaryImages for Paramount+