What happens in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas: The Oscar-winning superstar has a fleeting cameo in the second episode of Taylor Sheridan’s new series.
Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Sam Elliott and Billy Bob Thornton are the nominal stars of 1883, producer Taylor Sheridan’s eagerly awaited prequel to his smash hit series Yellowstone. But when the first two episodes are screened during gala festivities Saturday evening at the Wynn Las Vegas resort hotel, another luminary will briefly assert himself as the center of attention: Tom Hanks.
The two-time Oscar-winner speaks scarcely a word of a dialogue in the Episode 2 prologue, a dramatically potent flashback to the aftermath of an infamous Civil War battle. But Hanks eloquently conveys both heartfelt compassion and war-weary resignation as a Union officer — evidently inspired by a real-life figure, Gen. George Meade — who offers empathy to James Dutton (McGraw), a Confederate officer who appears more than dead than alive after surviving the historic Battle of Antietam.
Dutton staggers to his feet like someone rising from the grave through sheer force of will, and staggers across a battlefield littered with the corpses of soldiers like a shell-shocked ghost. (It’s a powerful image that may nudge some film buffs to recall the opening minutes of Yves Angelo’s 1994 classic Colonel Chabert.) When he can stand no more, he sits down to continue surveying the carnage. Hanks’ three-star general rides by, dismounts, lays a comforting hand on his shoulder, then sits beside him. Few words are necessary, or even possible, for the two warriors. “I know,” the general says to the dumbstruck Dutton as they consider the result of the day’s bloody business. “I know.”
And then a narrator — Elsa (Isabel May), Dutton’s daughter — provides the kicker as she informs us: Her father spent three years in a Union prisoner of war camp after Antietam. For the rest of his life, he never spoke of his Civil War experiences.
Set to premiere Dec. 19 on the Paramount+ streaming channel, 1883 focuses on ancestors of the Yellowstone/Dutton Ranch paterfamilias John Dutton (Kevin Costner) as they journey westward toward the promised land of Montana. You can see a first-look trailer of the series here, and learn more about the cast here.