Director Peter Berg and Indigenous cultural consultant Julie O’Keefe talked with us about the western drama.
When director Peter Berg set out to make American Primeval, his epic western miniseries now streaming on Netflix, he was determined to enhance his violent drama with documented facts while depicting the deadly clashes between Natives, pioneers, Mormon soldiers, and the US government in 1857 Utah.
Right from the start, Berg and writer Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) envisioned American Primeval as an even-handed look at the violent collision of culture, religion, and community as men and women fought and died to either keep or claim the lands that made up the brutal American frontier. Among those men and women were multiple Native Tribes who had long occupied the lands — the Shoshone, Paiute, and Ute.
So the call went out to Julie O’Keefe, recently head Osage wardrobe authority for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, to serve as Indigenous cultural consultant and project adviser on American Primeval, and lend her expertise to ensure authenticity across the Native storylines spanning the movie.
“Julie was there every day making sure that we got it right,” says Berg. “That we got the hair right, the jewelry right, the clothes right, the language right, the behavior right, for the time period and Nations. I knew what I didn’t know, and she was extremely valuable in helping us all make sure that we did get it right. We’re very mindful of how important it is that all of these different groups are honored, that our research and depictions are accurate.”
American Primeval director and executive producer Peter Berg.
O’Keefe was first contacted by Virginia Johnson, the film’s costume designer, in January 2024.
“She was looking for some items to be made,” O’Keefe recalls, “and had spoken with Jacqueline West, the costume designer from Killers of the Flower Moon, about a recommendation for a Native consultant regarding costume development and buying.
“Three different Tribal Nations are involved in [American Primeval]. The time period is 1857. The department heads had been working since October on the project, had cultural questions about symbols, tipis versus longhouses, language, warbonnets, hairstyles, style of moccasins, props, food, burial rites, clan names — everything pertaining to the culture of how these three different Tribal Nations lived.
“My approach comes from an academic approach focused on authenticity. It is assumed by the majority in Hollywood that one person can answer any ‘Native American’ question. But there are 574 federally recognized Tribal Nations in the US, so that is literally impossible. The goal for a Native consultant, even though I refer to myself as an ‘Indigenous cultural consultant,’ is to make sure the director and all departments are provided with the accurate information so that different Tribal cultures are not borrowed or mixed together to portray some kind of a hodgepodge of cultures that have nothing to do with the Tribe being portrayed.”

What’s the worst that could happen without access to such info?
“Imagine if you buried the Pope in lederhosen with a Buddhist nun officiating Catholic rites, while everyone danced with a Union Jack flag. That is what it looks like to see your culture misrepresented.”
Point taken.
Peter Berg and Julie O’Keefe recently visited the C&I Studio to discuss their collaboration on American Primeval.