- "1923" creator and writer Taylor Sheridan famously writes all of his scripts by himself.
- However, Aminah Nieves said Sheridan collaborated on storylines involving Indigenous characters.
Taylor Sheridan is one of Hollywood's hardest working talents, writing every single episode of Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren-led drama "1923," as well as the earlier Dutton family origin series, "1883," entirely alone.
The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and screenwriter has also penned all the scripts for the flagship series that started it all, "Yellowstone," by himself too (bar some of its second season), alongside producing and co-writing commitments on his other Paramount+ dramas, "Tulsa King," "Mayor of Kingstown," and another planned "Yellowstone" spinoff that has not been announced.
However, according to actor Aminah Nieves, the architect of the fast-growing "Sheridanverse" was more than open to collaboration when it came to penning her character Teonna Rainwater's harrowing storyline in "1923," especially since it's rooted in history that her ancestors lived through.
Speaking to Insider, Nieves said that there was "100%" a sense that she and other Indigenous performers on the show could give Sheridan notes on the dialogue, blocking, and overall storyline, despite his usual preferences.
"It was very collaborative, and I thank Taylor, I thank him for allowing it to be that way," she said.
"If we thought something needed to just change a little bit, we would always voice it," she said.
Nieves' character is from the fictional Broken Rock Reservation and has been torn away from her grandmother (Amelia Rico) and father (Michael Spears) and placed in a church-run boarding school run by the sadistic Father Renaud (Sebastian Roché).
As viewers have seen across the show's first season, the lessons the Indigenous youth at the school are taught don't focus on actual education, but cultural assimilation. Nieves' character has been caned, locked in a hotbox, and scrubbed with steel wool for repeatedly resisting their attempts to "kill the Indian" in her.
Nieves recalled how in one scene set at the boarding school, she suggested that her character "should be standing in the middle" of the other female students after receiving another brutal beating from Sister Mary (Jennifer Ehle) because, as she told Sheridan, "they're a bit like a wolf pack" and so they would position their weakest members where they have the most protection.
"The strongest are at the end and at this point she's tired, she's exhausted," Nieves explained. "So things like that. Just day-to-day, it was a collaborative experience."
Nieves previously defended the show's distressing scenes, telling Insider that portraying the systematic oppression that Indigenous American people went through is "necessary" even if it is hard to watch.
"I think it's necessary because this hasn't been told as truthfully and on this wide of a scale before," Nieves said when asked about the staggering amount of violent acts carried out against her character.
She continued: "Truly, I think that we have to speak up and we have to share these stories no matter how hard they are."
Nieves added that as the show presumably "has more of a white demographic," it's even more important that they don't "shy away from" graphically violent or emotionally troubling scenes so that viewers learn about the injustices Indigenous people suffered.
"1923" airs Sunday on Paramount+.