1923 Star Recalls Unexpected Challenges on Yellowstone Prequel

With 1923 set to return in a week, star Brandon Sklenar recently recalled unexpected challenges on the set of the prequel show. Sklenar stars as Spencer Dutton, the youngest son of 1883 main characters, James (Tim McGraw) and Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill). Suffering from PTSD from serving in World War I, Spencer decided to stay away from the Yellowstone ranch and live in Africa as a hunter. There he meets Alexandra “Alex” (Julia Schlaepfer), a betrothed British woman, sparking a heated romance.

During a drive through the bush, Spencer and Alex’s car is flipped by a charging elephant. About to be trampled to death, Spencer shoots the animal, killing it. Sklenar recently sat down with TVLine and recalled challenges he faced while filming with animals on the African 1923 set. The actor admitted that he found working with elephants to be both difficult and memorable. Read what Sklenar said about the experience below:

Elephants. Elephants. I spent a lot of time with those elephants. When we were flipped over in the car — the elephant charges us, the car flips over — they’re trying to get the elephant to charge so it can do that second hit just before I have to shoot it through the windshield.

The elephants are just kind of slow, kind of do what they want. We’re laying in the car on the ground, in order to get the elephant over to us, they give us a bunch of oranges… Then we’d be like calling the elephant over with the oranges. Instead of running over, he’d just kind of like trot over. And they got these big hairy lips [laughs]. It’s just great because you’re in the middle of a scene trying to hold this emotion and this intensity, and then you got this massive elephant saunters over, slowly eating oranges out of your hand. I was laying, l iterally laying under an elephant, just two feet from it. Just looking up at it going, “Well, this is bonkers.”

What to Expect When 1923 Returns