by Tiffany Goldstein

7h ago

Country music icon Faith Hill recently (June 14) appeared on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” to dish on why she once placed acting on the back-burner and to talk about her success with “1883.”

The “Breathe” singer currently stars in the “Yellowstone” prequel “1883” alongside Tim McGraw. While the husband-wife duo receive praise for their extraordinary acting in the action-packed series, Hill told Clarkson that she never expected to work in Hollywood again after her role in “The Stepford Wives.”

Hill played “Stepford” wife, Sarah Sunderson in the 2004 film. Although the 54-year-old worked alongside critically acclaimed talent such as Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Glenn Close, Roger Bart, Christopher Walken, and more – she said that her experience on set was far from amazing.

On the heels of the big-screen gig, Hill’s music career was just getting off the ground and she was starting a family with McGraw. Therefore, she did not think twice about taking a long hiatus from acting.

“My career took off, no time, had babies, and I had done a couple of things,” Hill told Clarkson. “I did ’Stepford Wives’ with an amazing cast. But it wasn’t the best experience. So, I said, ’I will never ever, ever, ever, ever do another one, a movie,” she added while laughing.

The daytime host questioned why she had a bad experience on set. Hill quickly fired back with an answer, declaring that she likes to be busy and there was just too much “waiting” for her liking.

“Because it’s so long. The waiting for me …,” she uttered while rolling her eyes. “It’s hurry up and wait,” Clarkson pointed out. “I cannot. I have to be busy, doing stuff. Then I did an independent thing called Dixieland [in 2017]. I read a lot of scripts over the years, but nothing hit me, or the timing wasn’t right.”

When screenwriter and director Taylor Sheridan sent the script over for the record-breaking series “1883,” Hill told Clarkson that the choice to participate was a no-brainer.

“The script was so well written,” she explained. “I had honestly never read anything like that. So we made the decision to do it.”

“1883” served as the first time McGraw and Hill have acted together. Before the two agreed to the roles of James and Margaret Dutton, they knew the show would be a difficult project to take on.

In “1883,” TV- fanatics witnessed James Dutton (Tim McGraw), Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill), and Elsa Dutton (Isabel May) escape poverty by traveling from Fort Worth, Texas, to Montana with settlers to create a flourishing life. The complex storyline is what captured the country couples attention and encouraged them to take Sheridan up on his generous offer.

“I remember we were sitting on our patio, and I looked at Faith, and I told her,’ Once we sign [the contract], we are no longer the boss anymore,” McGraw shared with NPR WBEZ Chicago. “We’re hired help. It’s going to be really hard work.’ And it was: It was 14-hour days, six days a week, and we probably got three hours of sleep a night.”

After nearly 25 years of marriage and long hours together on set, the hitmaker told CBS Morning that they don’t rehearse their lines together.

“The thing we chose to do was not rehearse together … we thought the spontaneity is going to be created the moment we set foot on set. Tim is James and I’m Margaret. That’s who we are, and that’s where we become them, on set,” she stressed.

“1883” is available to stream on Paramount +. Academy Award winner Helen Mirren and actor Harrison Ford will star in “1932,” the next installment of the “Yellowstone” origin story. The highly anticipated prequel follows the record-breaking performance of “1883” and will premiere in December of 2022. It remains unclear if the “Humble And Kind” artist and Hill will be making a triumphant return.