So when Eric Nelsen‘s Ennis met his maker in 1883‘s Episode 5, there were plenty of tears on the Yellowstone prequel’s set — starting with Nelsen himself.
“As an actor, I underestimated that day,” he tells TVLine. “Because I was like, ‘Well, I just lay there the whole time. Everybody else is emotional around me, and I just get to lay there throughout the filming process.’”
But when the scene (which came near the end of the episode Paramount Network re-aired on Sunday) actually was filmed, “Oh my God, that was the hardest thing I had to shoot out of the entire show!” Nelsen say, laughing.
Ennis’ death came at the hands of bandits who attacked the Oregon-bound wagon train: He took a bullet to the chest and was gone quickly. Elsa Dutton, Ennis’ love (played by Isabel May), killed his murderer immediately afterward, then collapsed in grief next to the fallen cowhand’s body. (Read a full recap.)
“Because of the emotion that I was feeling from Isabel and the emotion I was feeling from the entire cast, because everybody’s there witnessing this, it took everything I had in me not to be bawling, crying, myself,” the actor continues. “I just felt Isabel May’s pain and Elsa’s, you know, just every emotion she was going through. She’s screaming on me, she’s like pulling me apart emotionally. Literally, I was just trying so hard not to cry just based off of her reactions to it all.”
He shakes his head, chuckling. ” I thought I was going to be… laying down and having a nice, easy day that day. But no, it was incredibly, incredibly emotionally draining, even for me, even when I’m just lying there with my eyes closed.”
Nelsen’s co-stars apparently didn’t get off much easier, LaMonica Garrett chimes in. “Sam [Elliott], me and James [Landry] Hébert were sitting on our horses off camera, just watching the whole thing,” he recalls. After a few takes, “We all look at each other, and there’s tears in all of our eyes.”