1923 Actor Almost Didn’t Audition for Role in Yellowstone Spinoff

The Yellowstone spinoff, 1923, is only two episodes in, but the prequel is already proving to be a major hit for Paramount+ with the series premiere setting a huge record for the streaming service. Fans are tuning in each week to find out what’s next for this generation of the Dutton family as well as others who are a part of the world of the Yellowstone ranch including the Rainwaters. But for Aminah Nieves, who plays Teonna Rainwater in 1923, the role of the young Native American woman taken from her reservation and sent to a Catholic boarding school in North Dakota, she almost didn’t audition for the hit series at all. Speaking with E! News, Nieves said she initially told her manager she wasn’t going to audition for the series.

“I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “I actually told my manager that I wasn’t going to audition for it. It’s a big burden and you’re opening up a lot more when you’re actually living in what your family lived through. Because of their strength and because of what they did for us, I didn’t have to live through that in the same exact way that they did.”

In 1923, viewers have seen Teonna and the other young woman at the residential school experience abuse at the hands of the nuns as well as the priest in charge, particularly Teonna who has experienced some extreme abuse. Nieves explained that she eventually decided to audition for the role and that she ended up leaning on her family for support.

“I was speaking with my mom a lot,” she said. “I almost didn’t feel worth enough to tell this story because it’s so important. It’s scary when you’re telling something that has been a part of you since you were just a thought, since you were a little light beam in the cosmos. It’s terrifying.”

She continued, “After the third self-tape, I couldn’t not do it. I could not get that third self-tape. I couldn’t get through it. I was bawling. I was like, I need to do it, not only for me, but I looked at my mom on the other side and I was like, ‘I gotta do it for her.’”

What is 1923 about?

1923, the next installment of the Dutton family origin story, will introduce a new generation of Duttons led by patriarch Jacob (Ford) and matriarch Cara (Mirren). The series will explore the early twentieth century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition and the Great Depression all plague the mountain west, and the Duttons who call it home.

In addition to Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, 1923 also stars Darren Mann (“Animal Kingdom”), Michelle Randolph (“A Snow White Christmas”), James Badge Dale (“Hightown”), Marley Shelton (“Scream”), Brian Geraghty (“Big Sky”), Aminah Nieves (“Blueberry”), and Jerome Flynn (“Game of Thrones”).

1923 is now streaming on Paramount+.