If there’s one word that sums up Netflix‘s gnarly new western drama, American Primeval, it would be savage. How else to describe a series that features the harrowing Mountain Meadows Massacre, visceral scalpings, the murder of hostages, cold blooded killing, hangings, stabbings, violent shootouts, and even wolf attacks? The fight sequences in American Primeval were so intense that even series star Taylor Kitsch didn’t escape unscathed. The American Primeval star revealed to Decider that he actually broke his foot shooting one of the season’s coolest rampages.
**Minor spoilers for American Primeval Episodes 1-2, now streaming on Netflix**
Directed and executive produced by Peter Berg, American Primeval takes modern viewers far away from the coziness of their couches to the unforgiving world of 1857 Utah Territory. East coast widow Sara Rowell (Betty Gilpin) and her son Devin (Preston Mota) have arrived at Fort Bridger, only to discover they’ve missed their appointed guide and window to travel west to California. Desperate to cross the brutal landscape as soon as possible, they attempt to hire local wilderness expert Isaac Reed (Taylor Kitsch). At first he refuses, only to save Ms. Rowell and her son’s life from the horror of the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
For the rest of American Primeval‘s tense six episodes, Isaac and Sara bicker, flirt, and battle their way across the untamed American northwest. Their adventures — or misadventures, if you like — offer up ample opportunities for Isaac to prove his prowess as a warrior in order to save Sara and her son.
When Decider asked Taylor Kitsch if any of his many, many American Primeval fight scenes stood out to him in memory, he initially said, “No,” prompting co-star Betty Gilpin to giggle. Then, he admitted, one stuck out for a very painful reason.
“What I loved about it was we were always very conscious of keeping it 1857.”
Taylor Kitsch
“I broke my foot in this and I think that was in Episode 2 at the skinning camp,” Kitsch said, referring to a sequence in which Isaac must defend the Rowells from a group of bear trappers who mean them harm.
“I mean, that’s one of my favorites, especially the scene that kind of buttons up that action sequence, between [Betty] and I.”
“They’re all really different, you know?” Kitsch continued. “What I loved about it was we were always very conscious of keeping it 1857. It’s very raw, you know, and those guns would jam a third of the time. So you see it just not going off and you’re chucking the gun at them. You’re just trying to get in tight to get your hands on the guy before they can get an arrow off or the gun, obviously.”
Kitsch emphasized that the rough, ready, and all too real quality of American Primeval‘s action was what he liked most. “I love that part of it, just how scrappy it was, and that hopefully takes you to that 1800s tone — how violent that is.”
A broken foot in the name of realism? That’s just Taylor Kitsch giving Netflix viewers the full
“American Primeval.”
American Primeval is now streaming on Netflix.
