From Struggle to Triumph: Spencer Actor’s Unforgettable Experience on Yellowstone Spinoff’s Most Challenging Scene

1923 star Brandon Sklenar reveals that he filmed the toughest scene of his career on the Yellowstone prequel spinoff series. Sklenar stars as Spencer Dutton, the youngest son of 1883 main characters, James (Tim McGraw) and Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill), who lives in Africa as a hunter following his tour in World War I. During a whirlwind romance with British socialite Alexandra “Alex” (Julia Schlaepfer), he learns of an attack on his family by angry ranchers, leaving his brother dead and his uncle severely wounded. This tragic news spurns Spencer and Alex’s desperate attempt to get to Montana.

While on The Official Yellowstone Podcast Sklenar shared what he considered is the toughest scene he ever had to film in his career. During 1923 episode 6, Spencer and Alex book passage on a tugboat to the Suez Canal. Unfortunately, the ship’s captain dies during his watch and the vessel is capsized by a ghost ship, leaving the couple stranded in the sea. Sklenar admitted that the amount of swimming in the episode was physically exhausting, calling it “one of the toughest things” he’s ever had to do for a production. Read what the actor had to say below:

“Episode 6, all the swimming — man, that was tough. That was definitely the toughest thing I’ve done on a project hands down. I mean one of the toughest things I’ve done in general. I’m in pretty decent shape and we swam a lot going into to that and it was hard because the water was cold and it was pretty chilly outside and what ends up being in the show is a few minutes but we did that for four days.”

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