WARNING: SPOILER ahead for American Primeval.
American Primeval star Taylor Kitsch recently revealed just how difficult it was to film the popular Netflix Western series. Following its release on Netflix on January 9, 2025, American Primeval’s streaming success has made it one of the most-viewed Netflix series of 2025. Kitsch leads the cast of American Primeval as Isaac Reed, a frontiersman skilled to survive in the rough and wild terrain of the Utah Territory during the 1850s on the brink of the Utah War.
In a recent interview with Collider, Kitsch and co-star Betty Gilpin discuss some of the challenges of shooting on location for American Primeval, which involved Kitsch breaking his foot, getting surgery, and having to ride a horse in a boot. “I was in the boot again for six weeks. So that was fun. That was so fun,” Kitsch revealed. Gilpin sensed the challenge of the shoot before the filming even started. “When I first read the scripts, I was like, “Oh God, this is going to be rough.” It’s a lot of night shoots in the snow,” Gilpin noted.
American Primeval’s Difficult Filming Adds To The Western Show’s Realism
The series wouldn’t look or feel the same had it been shot in a studio
These quotes from Kitsch and Gilpin talking about the brutal shoot add a lot to the overall sense of realism in the show. While American Primeval isn’t always true to the facts, it does stay true to the brutality of that time and how difficult it could be to survive for certain people, which ultimately makes for a tonally elevated and compelling series. The fact that Peter Berg and crew chose to shoot on location under difficult weather conditions makes a difference to the overall look and feel of the series. That energy is infused into the fabric of American Primeval and makes the performances even more impressive given the harsh environmental factors.
Several other movies and shows capture similar Western and violent horror elements of Netflix’s epic period Western series American Primeval.
Interestingly, Gilpin revealed that, despite the brutal weather conditions, she preferred the day-to-day shooting process of American Primeval as opposed to a more traditional or straightforward shoot on a soundstage. She even attested that the filming approach on American Primeval was a key factor in the show’s quality, saying:
“Even though it was a wild experience, and it certainly was freezing cold, burning hot, it was still so much better than being stuck on a soundstage all the time, working a 16-hour day.”
“It was full-on, but it was what the show deserved. It did 80% of the work for you because it felt real.”
American Primeval Captures The Old West’s Brutality In A Way Few Westerns Do
American Primeval lacks the glorified charm of most classic Westerns
American Primeval is arguably the best or most effective modern Western project to capture the endless dangers and brutality of the Old American West since Bone Tomahawk. The 2015 Kurt Russell-led Western movie is so graphic that it borders on horror, even more so than the most violent scenes in American Primeval. The film is almost relentlessly bleak, which could be seen as a fault, but it does serve the story and characters well by matching the cold realities of its setting and timeline. Considering what the cast and crew sacrificed to make it happen, it feels right that American Primeval was spawned from less-than-ideal conditions.
