[The story contains major spoilers from the season one finale of The Madison.]
The Madison has introduced a brand new household to the Sheridan-verse. And after the conclusion of its first season, the story of the Clyburns is just simply getting began.
The grief drama from Yellowstone hit-maker Taylor Sheridan launched viewers to the Clyburns when it plucked them out of their New York City comforts and plopped them on an uncomfortable but transformative six-episode tour through their grief in Montana.
The first season was given an uncommon launch, because it streamed in two elements over the past two weekends on Paramount+, like two mini-movies — which is how the story could possibly be considered. The second season has already been filmed and is within the can, awaiting an official launch date from the streamer, and the solid, in conversations with The Hollywood Reporter right here, makes it clear that Sheridan plans to proceed.
“They’re hoping for season three,” star Michelle Pfeiffer tells THR.
No official bulletins have been made, however Sheridan usually gets what he wants.
The Madison was a leap of faith for Pfeiffer when she signed on to play Clyburn matriarch Stacy. She didn’t have a script or a lot of a personality description after leaving an early 2024 assembly with Sheridan at his Texas ranch when he pitched her the sequence in particular person — nor did she have a scene associate. Kurt Russell, who would finally signal on to play her husband, Preston, was in manufacturing on his Apple sequence Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and wasn’t out there when season one was set to start within the fall. So Pfeiffer and Sheridan pitched to Paramount that they transfer ahead with a second season, and that Russell movie all of his season one scenes once they return one yr later, in 2025, to make season two.
That meant Pfeiffer would movie everything of season one with out Russell, their scenes minimize collectively within the edit. “I was not happy about that,” Pfeiffer recently told THR with a laugh. “It was touch and go if they were going to make [Kurt’s] schedule work. But Taylor was insisting it was going to happen, so I just decided, ‘OK, it’s Kurt.’ And because I know him, that was pretty easy to conjure up.”
(*2*)
Michelle Pfeiffer as Stacy Clyburn. “I wonder if they would do a theatrical release because it is so sweeping,” says the actress, who credit 1923 star Helen Mirren for serving to her decide to the undertaking.
Emerson Miller/Paramount+
The sequence proves to be a Pfeiffer vehicle as she steers her fractured, privileged and infrequently out-of-touch household via their levels of grief after Preston’s sudden dying. After Preston and his brother Paul, performed by Matthew Fox, tragically die in a airplane crash whereas at their Montana dwelling to open the sequence, Preston’s kids (performed by Beau Garrett and Elle Chapman; with a son-in-law performed by Patrick J. Adams) and grandchildren (performed by 11-year-old Alaina Pollack and Amiah Miller) journey with Stacy to the cabin within the mountains that Preston beloved his complete life, however a spot that the remainder of his household had by no means visited.
“That’s often how people die in airplanes, when an emotional factor makes their decision-making,” Fox, a pilot himself, tells THR. “He only gets his brother out there for a couple weeks a year. He’s flown him to this special place. It bothered me that Paul was a little nonchalant about the weather that was moving in, but I justified i that he’s just trying to give his brother the very best birthday gift he possibly could.”
After many hurdles for this fish-out-of-water household and self-proclaimed “city mouse” Stacy — starting from outhouse assaults by hornets, elk dinners that just about undo the household and lots of, many classes in empathy and readjusting preconceptions — Stacey ends the primary season deciding to reside on the Montana dwelling that has now been imprinted onto her soul. After burying her husband there and holding a memorial in New York City, she leaves town with none phrase to her household and arrives at Preston’s remaining resting place in Montana. When she is discovered by cowboy Cade (Kevin Zegers), she tells her pleasant neighbor that she may use a hand getting settled, as she plans to remain for some time.
The ending units up The Madison to return the sequence to the mountains as the primary setting for season two, and the solid informed THR all of them plan to observe — in a roundabout way, form or kind.
“The family unit of the Clyburns is what holds everyone together, and they’re all integral to that dynamic. So there are a lot of questions at the end of season one that will be answered when you get to season two,” Yellowstone veteran Christina Voros, who directed all the sequence, tells THR. “When the script showed up in my inbox, I cried. It’s such a unique show for Taylor in a lot of ways, but it’s a very specific show for me as an East Coaster who met a cowboy [husband Jason Owen, also animal coordinator on the series] and fell in love and moved to Texas and discovered Montana through shooting Westerns for Taylor. There was so much in the DNA of the show that felt specifically like it was speaking to me. I’ve never had the opportunity to direct something that I felt so creatively attached to.”
What particularly spoke to Voros was the storyline with Abby, Stacy’s older, divorced daughter — and mom to Bridgette (Miller) and youthful sister Macy (Pollack) — who’s performed by Garrett. “It’s funny watching her conversations with Van,” Voros says of the sheriff performed by Ben Schnetzer. “Some of those are conversations I had with Jason when I first met him.”
Ben Schnetzer as Van with Beau Garrett as Abigail (Abby). “Five [seasons] feels like a good number. However long it takes for the story to be told,” says Garrett, who has been using horses her complete life, of her hopes for the sequence.
Emerson Miller/Paramount+
After discovering a deep (and steamy) connection whereas in Montana, Abby heads again to New York City after a tough dialog with Van that highlighted their seemingly not possible romance. But the door is left ajar after a finale cellphone name heading into season two. “Christina was able to bring a very deft touch and particular insight, which was hugely helpful,” says Schnetzer, who returns for season two. “It’s a love story between two individuals who have fairly difficult and dedicated lives, however that solely provides to the drama and the intrigue. At instances it actually takes fireplace, and at instances they’re form of pulled aside.
“I find Christina to be so enthralling, and her story to be so enthralling,” says Garrett of The Madison helmer and what’s in retailer for Abby and Van. “There’s a softness to Abby that happens in season two that didn’t have a place in season one that was really fun to explore, a happiness; a joy. A bit of life that maybe she had forgotten in herself.”
She provides, “I don’t think this family is going to let the matriarch be alone in Montana.”
Pfeiffer and Russell have been formally on board when Voros was approached in 2024 by Sheridan to direct his subsequent sequence. They have been filming what would become the final episodes of Yellowstone, and Sheridan informed his go-to director that he would have scripts for her quickly. But the supporting solid wasn’t but set when the scripts confirmed up in her inbox.
When the remainder of the Clyburn household booked their auditions — which, for many of them, included display screen exams in Wyoming — they questioned if the present was set within the Yellowstone-verse, since that’s the way it was first introduced. There was a bunch chat named “Clyburn & Co” (separate from a textual content chain that included their Oscar- and Emmy-nominated onscreen dad and mom) that might churn with each script supply. “We would text, ‘Episode five just dropped, guys!’ Everybody would race to read it, and then we’d all discuss,” shares Chapman.
Adams mentioned it was then made clear that The Madison would now not be present in or related to the world of the Duttons, and that this series would be “its own thing.”
He additionally had a private connection to the story. “We lost my stepdad about three years ago now and part of that was that we inherited this cabin. So I was in a cabin with my family, much like the Clyburns, when this show came to me,” Adams shares with THR. “I was having a very similar experience of wondering how we take care of it when I got the audition. Then I got a message that Taylor was really into [my tape] and he wanted me in Wyoming. But I couldn’t go. I would have to strand my family to get down there. I thought that would be it, and then they came back and said I could just make another tape.”
Chapman recollects on the display screen take a look at in Wyoming listening to different actors auditioning for Russell saying, “’Thank God Patrick J. Adams isn’t here, because I heard he was testing.’ They thought he was out of the running,” she says with a smile.
Adams would go on to land the position of Russell, who serves as comedic aid and an sudden ally to Stacy as she tries to enlighten her daughters about Montana. And Chapman booked the position of his spouse, Stacy’s youthful and most self-centered daughter Paige. “It was very surreal,” admits the 27-year-old of her first display screen take a look at, for Sheridan, no much less. “I tested against nine other girls, most of which I had grown up watching. I was so nervous.”
Paige and Russell appear the least prone to ebook a return flight to Montana for season two, however the actors say extra evolution is in retailer for all the Clyburns, together with their married characters.
“Both places exist at the same time [between Montana and New York],” says Adams of subsequent season. “The bulk of the story is Montana-based. They find themselves there and, I’m not sure how much they want us talking about the specifics, but this show exists with these people in this space trying to figure out who they are, not only to themselves but to each other, and it’s sort of a deepening position.”
Miller, who performs oldest granddaughter Bridgette, sums up: “Season one is about the family reconnecting and learning how to survive both emotionally and physically. Season two is about them rebuilding after they’ve reconnected and finding their footing and their love for each other.”
Elle Chapman as Paige with Patrick J. Adams as husband Russell. “Part of the joy of this show is that these people are totally unprepared. We’re all deer in headlights,” says Adams. “These people certainly exist in New York. They exist in every city when you’re disconnected. Taylor is using New York and their position as a way to give contrast to what happens when any of us get in the car or drive out of a city and take a breath and touch grass and go, ‘What is this quiet, peaceful feeling? What is this conversation I can have with someone undistracted?’”
Emerson Miller/Paramount+
One particular person not returning for season two, nonetheless, is Fox. The Lost star additionally filmed everything of his scenes throughout season two manufacturing, since Russell was his scene associate, and the concept of a restricted engagement was a draw for the actor.
“That’s one of my requirements these days,” he tells THR with amusing, sharing that he nonetheless will get approached by folks on airplanes who inform him he makes them nervous (due to Lost). “I’m at a point in my life where I’d rather pop in and do something interesting, but I don’t want to dedicate six years of my life to something [again]. Taylor is an an exceptional writer. When I read the scripts, it really hit me where it hurts, and also made me laugh.”
Fox, who grew up in Wyoming, says he “appreciated Taylor’s authenticity of the world. He offers a lot as a storyteller, not just on a dialogue level but there’s so much subtext. I don’t know how he does everything that he’s doing. It’s mind-boggling. I’ve worked on other series where there’s a creator and a writers room where a lot of people are involved, and he writes everything. It’s really kind of astounding.”
When making a rare public appearance to introduce The Madison at its latest New York City premiere, Sheridan acknowledged the labor of affection that went into what he has described as his most intimate and private sequence but. “This is a very emotionally taxing project because it’s about grief and family and tearing apart and coming back together, so it demanded a lot and it demanded a lot of everyone,” he mentioned. He then credited Voros for finishing up his imaginative and prescient. “I had to turn it over to one person to trust to execute my vision and take this on. I’m a big believer that when you find a talent that understands your voice, you need to surrender to that talent,” he mentioned. “[Voros] exceeded even my wildest expectations.”
The first episode ended with a dedication to the late Robert Redford, which Voros says was Sheridan’s thought, and Redford’s A River Runs Through It was an inspiration — it’s even a part of the plot when Stacy reveals the film to her daughters after Preston’s dying. The sequence was filmed on location in Montana, with the cabin interiors filmed on a stage in Texas. The New York City scenes have been filmed each on location and in Dallas’ Fort Worth space.
“This was a beautiful series to make,” says Voros. “It all starts with the writing. There’s a reason for those of us who are lucky enough to work on Taylor’s shows — the reason people gravitate to these stories is because of the characters and the language they are able to speak. He’s a rare voice in this industry.”
The Clyburn brothers performed Matthew Fox (Paul) and Kurt Russell (Preston). “We’re both pilots, we both love to spend time outdoors and do things like fly fish,” says Fox of himself and Russell. “I read the scripts and they were really beautiful and moving and funny, and created imagery in my mind that felt familiar and like home. It just swept me in.”
Emerson Miller/Paramount+
Garrett thinks 5 seasons could be a pleasant quantity to observe the Clybun story via, although she admits “I don’t know where it goes, where it could go” past season two. But “grief is universal. Everyone has someone or something they’ve lost. That is relatable for anybody. Also, we all want to laugh, and this is also a really funny show. Grief is messy and funny,” she says.
“I think I speak for everyone when I say we would gladly shoot this show forever,” provides Adams. “I think we’ve found something kind of miraculously special here, so as long as it’s a story people want to hear, we’d be happy to tell it.”
Voros agrees, “Any time you get a show together with a cast like this you kind of want it to go forever. Having completed the second season, you just fall more and more in love with them as a family. It’s more complicated, emotionally, underneath.”
Season two may also result in Pfeiffer and Russell’s first scenes really filmed collectively, as Stacy and Preston’s love story will proceed even after his dying.
“You might see more of us in season two, together,” Pfeiffer briefly teases. Russell echoes solely, “It’s in a different way.”
The pair are properly skilled on spoilers as they settle into their roles inside the Sheridan-verse.
“I’ve spent a lot of time on the East Coast and I’ve spent a lot of time in the mountains. They all have something different to offer,” says Pfeiffer of referring to Stacy. “I love Montana. But I don’t know that I would live there. I am a city mouse.”
The Madison is now streaming all of season one on Paramount+. Read THR’s show coverage.
