TV - Movies
Isabel May Loved
The Intense
Cowboy Camp
Training For 1883
By SAM MOYA
For authenticity, creator Taylor Sheridan not only casts many real-life cowboys on his TV westerns, but also has the performers attend cowboy camp before production. The camp helps actors get comfortable riding horses and performing some of the basic things that cowboys do, like roping and herding cattle, and Isabel May, who plays Elsa Dutton on “1883,” loved it.
May revealed that, having grown up in Los Angeles, she was not at all familiar with the cowboy lifestyle, which led to her starting cowboy camp a week earlier than everyone else. She cited her desire to become a natural on a horse, and later in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, said, “riding through this beautiful countryside was fun and another daydream."
Cowboy camp may be rigorous, but it doesn’t compare to what life was actually like for those who journeyed across America in the 1800s. From her experience filming “1883,” May said, "It's mind-boggling how many ways you could be harmed or killed. And you were certainly at risk to lose the vast majority of the people you loved, which I think was the hardest part of it."