Making of ‘1923’ – Spotlight on Aminah Nieves: ‘It’s so important, and it’s very emotional’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“That’s why I act. I not only want to share our stories, but I want to just share all beings’ stories,” admits actress Aminah Nieves on how her role on Paramount+ Western drama “1923” resonated with her on such a profound level. For our fascinating special spotlight chat Nieves is joined by Gold Derby senior editor Rob Licuria for a memorable “Making of” Q&A that takes a deep dive into the making of one of the season’s most beloved stories. Watch our exclusive video interview above.
“It’s emotional! It’s an emotional rollercoaster when you don’t feel like you’ve been represented on television your whole life and then you go to being in a big show and being a representation for your community, for my nieces, my nephews. It’s so important and it’s very emotional and I’m still in awe every single day,” she shares. “It could be hard for us to feel prideful sometimes in who we are because we were forced to be someone we weren’t for so long. With this show specifically, the most important thing to convey was that every single thing that you see in ‘1923’ happened, and there was a lot that happened that wasn’t in the show.”
After the acclaimed Western’s first season concluded in February, fans of the show were left with lots of open questions about where their favorite characters would end up after its spectacular season finale. Nieves is the breakout star of the show as the resilient Teonna Rainwater of the Crow Tribe of Montana, a rebellious young woman who was taken from her family and placed in a Native American boarding school for indigenous girls run by the Catholic Church. Her storyline evoked so much passion, empathy and rage from critics and fans alike as starkly depicted the horrific treatment of Native American girls by the church and state in the early 20th Century.
“1923” is the latest addition to the “Yellowstone” TV universe, created and written by Oscar nominee Taylor Sheridan. It is the second prequel to the popular Paramount series (and sequel to last season’s hit prequel “1883”), focusing on the Duttons and the Yellowstone Ranch during a time of various hardships including prohibition, drought and the early stages of the Depression. Nieves is joined by two of the biggest names in the industry — Oscar nominee Harrison Ford
“For me, and honestly, I think for a lot of BIPOC communities in general, these traumas, they’re carried through wounds,” Nieves admits about how important this storyline is to her. “I’m experiencing not only what I’m feeling as Aminah, I’m experiencing what my mother went through, I’m experiencing with my grandmother, my great-grandmother. So I have all this in my body. And it’s interesting, you’re like, sometimes with acting, you’re like, ‘how am I gonna conjure this up, how are we gonna make it work?’ But it was almost instant and it hurt every time, and you have to figure out ways to move around that and ways to come back down from accessing those traumas and that emotion. But when you feel it, you feel it.”
“I can’t explain it,” she says. “I tell my dad often that I would feel people move in and out of me. Like sometimes I wasn’t even in control of my body. And so I would be thinking, I would be talking to myself while words for the show were coming out, and I’d be like, ‘all right, Aminah, this isn’t you. Someone else is coming through you, so just let ’em do what they’re here to do, and move forward.’ That happened so many times during filming and it was wild.”
