“I’m getting emotional just thinking about it.” Gratiela Brancusi talks the love, family, and history of 1883 that forever changed her.
Ask any actor and they’ll tell you, productions tend to create a sort of “bubble family.” You’re together near-constantly for an extended period of time, form strong bonds (for better or worse), and create something larger than yourselves together. But once that production ends, the bubble bursts, and it’s on to the next.
Ask the actors from 1883, however, and this is not at all the case. From Tim McGraw and Faith Hill to Isabel May, Eric Nelsen, LaMonica Garrett and Gratiela Brancusi, each has told me repeatedly how unusual 1883‘s production was for them – in the best of ways. The Yellowstone prequel created a true family, something that extended into the entire cast and crew. As LaMonica told me in June, “Other shows simply aren’t like this. It’s something different.”
This proves particularly true for Gratiela. A rich, warm soul and experienced thespian, Gratiela grew up in Romania with a loving family, cows, horses, and summer exposure to open countryside. Some of 1883 was familiar in kind, but the Yellowstone prequel was her first Hollywood production.
Her earthen, determined Noemi would make a profound impact with audiences on-screen, and on Yellowstone architect Taylor Sheridan. So much so that he created a part for her in his next script, Mayor of Kingstown‘s Season 2.
But it was off-screen that Gratiela formed some of the strongest bonds of her life – something that continues to this day as the Yellowstone prequel airs in full on Paramount Network for the first time.
I sat down to catch up with Gratiela as the cable premiere unfolded, and again, in the best of ways, she hasn’t changed a bit.
It’s been a year and a half since the show came out, and you all are still a big family, truly. Lamonica told me you’re all going to one of Tim’s concerts soon together. How does it feel to still have these incredible bonds all this time later?
Gratiela: I’m getting emotional just thinking about it. I think being there for six months and living together in these bunkhouses… It was the only time in my life where I wasn’t checking my phone. I would check it once a week. All we had was each other.
For me, it was such a formative experience. It was my first TV show. So LaMonica and James [Landry Hébert, 1883‘s Wade] especially, but even Isabel May, who’s so much younger than us, really mentored me through this experience as much as they could. I’m forever going to be grateful to these people. And I have so much love for them.
But I also can’t help but think that we just got lucky! Everyone was just a bunch of really kind orphans, as I call them. James and I really were somewhat. But we were all out there away from our families. Away from the coffee shops. I think we will forever be in touch. I want to watch them all get old.
LaMonica and Sam [Elliott] say this all this all the time, that 1883 was their best experience on a project, which is crazy considering how much they’ve both done.
One soul, one wrong person getting cast could’ve messed it all up. But from one side to the other, you all just clicked.
Gratiela: That’s another thing LaMonica says all the time! “Don’t think you’re going to get this again!” [laughs].
We definitely built a new kind of love. To meet someone, a stranger… I haven’t experienced love in that way since I was a child and I would go to the countryside. My parents would send me off on a ten hour bus ride, and you would meet these other children, and each one comes from a different city and family. But you’re all barefoot, and you belong to no one. You belong to nature. That was the closest I’ve ever experienced to the kind of love I have for these people.
We all went to Stagecoach together a month ago, and it feels like being with people I grew up with. I truly think that we grew up together, in some ways, over those six months. It’s the closest to that I’ll ever experience as an adult.
How was working on Mayor of Kingstown, then? From one Taylor Sheridan production to the next!
Gratiela: It was very different. First of all, I was two minutes away from those coffee shops. And I could do Uber Eats and all this stuff. But I really loved Pittsburg. I didn’t know what to expect, and I really, really loved it. I was there for four or five months, and I could really see myself living there.
But I really loved the crew and made some friends there, too. But the chemistry and the dynamics were different, because we were back… We were connected to the rest of the world. Whereas in Texas and Montana, we might as well have been in New Zealand.
Having Roma heritage and being from Romania, then traveling so much of the American West steeped in U.S. history, what did 1883 show or teach you about that American experience? You lived it for six months, and more than nearly anyone else has in centuries.
Gratiela: Ask LaMonica, and he’ll remember being in Montana forever-and-ever, and the cold and the wind. It’s tough. We can’t really imagine what these people went through. We did go through extremes, and on the other side, in Texas, it was so, so hot.
But one thing that I truly learned was about the Roma people. How and why they got here, and how they gravitated towards Black people, because they had such a shared experience of being enslaved for such a long time.
And I don’t know if Taylor [Sheridan] knew this when he wrote 1883 and Thomas and Noemi’s story. But it led me to speak to people and family back home that I had never really spoken to. I learned so much about our history, even the Roma history outside of the migration here.
In both places, Romania and America, it is an issue that we don’t really talk about; the five hundred years of slavery. We don’t learn it in schools. I did know some before 1883. I studied journalism in school, and had to do a lot of research. So I knew some, but not as much until I started studying for this show.
I also learned so much about LaMonica’s ancestors with the cowboy life. How they used to be such a big part of the rodeo life. And as an immigrant, I’m reminded every day that there are just so many cultures in America. Especially throughout 1883, it was “the more you know, the less you know.” I wish we could’ve done the show for years. I was learning something new every day.
1883 truly did change the game for period westerns. Now, if someone watches one that doesn’t include all the flavors of European immigration, the impact of Black cowboys, and especially the truth of Indigenous Americans, people will ask: “Well where is it?” That’s so important.
Gratiela: It really is. Not only was it such a beautiful piece of writing with such beautiful characters that we were trusted with. But again, the people that were there creating this thing, they understood that. And you can see that on-screen.
Our leadership was exceptional. Not only Taylor, but Tim, Faith, Sam, and Isabel. You don’t walk into rooms and meet people like them every day. So kudos to Taylor for being able to bring in such generous, kind, and warm people that brought us all together.
What a list of names. Even Tom Hanks was on set for 1883! What’s a moment that sticks out to you that hit you with that ‘Wow, this is happening’ feeling?
Gratiela: I, honestly, did not realize what was happening until we went to Vegas for the premiere. Which was such a shock. The day we all flew there for that event, we were working – shooting – that day. There was a dust storm that day! Didn’t even know if we were going to be able to fly, you couldn’t see in front of you in Amarillo at the time.
But then, there we were, sitting in this room with a thousand other people. And we saw the 1883 premiere on this big screen, the first two episodes. It kind of made me realize that this isn’t something that is going to be just for us. This was our baby! It felt like ours, then we were throwing it out for everyone to see.
I still have this odd feeling, like, do people watch 1883? Like, are they watching it? To realize other people were actually seeing this was surreal.
I’ve had really sweet, really kind people stop me in Texas and Montana and tell me how much they love the show. But it still never really felt real. I don’t know why.
People are watching this show, and the debut on cable has brought it to a whole new audience. The feedback that even I am getting is wild. “This is the best Yellowstone show,” or “this is like the westerns I watched growing up but better.” And the one word that always seems to come up is “intimate.” So that intimacy that you mention, both with the experience and the cast, is coming across for audiences. It feels personal, this series.
Gratiela: I haven’t watched it all yet.
You haven’t watched all of 1883?
Gratiela: No! I’ve seen the first two episodes at the premiere, and I’ve seen a few scenes here and there. I watched Sam and Isabel’s scene in Episode 6, which is just gut-wrenching. I saw it a couple of times, and I cried my heart out every time.
But I don’t know if I’m not ready to say goodbye to it? To that world of 1883? And also, I’m not ready to see… I don’t want to spoil anything, but I am not ready to see the end of these storylines. I love some of these characters as much as I love the people who built those characters. And I don’t know what I would have to do to feel like it is the right time to do so. Maybe sit in the same room with all these people and watch it.
It just feels so intimate! So I don’t want to share it with just anyone, but I also don’t want to watch it alone.
Well it made me cry, too, and I’m sure we’re not alone there. So please don’t watch it alone, that would be heartbreaking.
Gratiela: Oh, I know, I read through it all so many times and cried every time. Who knows, maybe for the ten year anniversary we’ll all get together and watch the whole thing. LaMonica still gives me grief about not having watched it all, so I’ll need to eventually.
And it’s not about not being able to watch myself in a show or anything. It’s beyond that. It’s the people, the characters. I just love these characters so much. I’m not ready to watch them die. I love this script so much.
Paramount did, too. They were very upset that some of the characters that died, died, and that there wasn’t going to be an actual Season 2. And that’s about as big a compliment as you can get.
So what is Noemi up to now, then, after the events of 1883? Her ending with Thomas, at least, is beautiful.
Gratiela: You know, I feel like I matured so much as a woman taking her on. And Thomas was so beautifully written. The way he knew how to love unconditionally. And just be there for her, and empower her to just be and make choices.
A woman of Roma background, especially at the time, didn’t have a lot of agency, right? And even now, it’s just so rare. So I felt like I grew so much as a woman. So I think Noemi did, too. I think she’s still doing that every day. And that’s, for me, just a reminder of how much of a gift Thomas was, and how different he was from any man Noemi grew up around or met or witnessed.
The stories that they shared… To this day, I still don’t think they articulate those experiences to one another. I think they just feel each other’s hearts. I think she’s a really lucky woman. A badass, too, but so lucky to have Thomas.