Billy The Kid Riding Off Into The Season 3 Sunset

Billy the Kid reaches the end of the trail during its third and final season, which kicks off an eight-episode run Sunday, September 28, on MGM+.

Here is the official MGM+ logline: “Billy the Kid resumes following the end of the Lincoln County War, as both Billy the Kid and Sheriff Pat Garrett have important issues to resolve — there is a reckoning to come. Billy is still at large, and Garrett is out to capture him, dead or alive. And with a bounty on his head, Billy has the opportunity to quit New Mexico altogether and pursue a future with Dulcinea, the love of his life. But he has unfinished business with Garrett, who has betrayed him, and decides to stay.

“Meanwhile Jesse Evans, Billy’s longtime friend, rival, and enemy, also remains in Lincoln, searching for a newfound purpose and perhaps atonement for his sins. As the saga comes to a close, Billy will fight like hell to try to finally find the justice that has long eluded him, even if it means he’ll die trying.”

We recently had the pleasure of talking with Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), who stars as Billy, and Daniel Webber (The Punisher), about their last rides in Billy the Kid. Here are some highlights from our conversation, edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Saying Goodbye to Billy and Jesse

Cowboys & Indians: OK, guys, you’re heading for the last roundup. And I know you can't say anything about how the series ends, so I’ll stick to safe spoiler-free questions. What do you think you’ll miss the most about Billy the Kid in general, and the roles you’ve been playing?

Daniel Webber: The cast, I think, is the first thing. The cast — and being in Calgary. Because the story is one thing, but just who we make this with and where we make it is huge. Yeah, I think it’s been the best three years of my life being there filming, being in nature, and working with the horses, and living as much as we can [as Billy and Jesse]. Yeah, I love this character. It's so much fun to play. If I could keep telling this story, I would.

Tom Blyth: It’s twofold. I think it’s that we’ll miss the show and the characters and everything we get to do in our work. We get to ride horses and be action heroes in the West and live every child’s dream. But we also then are going to miss each other. I think it’s a really tight cast and crew, and we’ve been lucky to have the same crew year in, year out — and so we've all gotten really close. It was one of the best crews I’ve ever worked with, some of the best stuntmen I’ve ever worked with, men and women. Yeah, I think we just feel very lucky to have been able to do it for three seasons over four years.

Life in the Saddle

C&I: So I guess it’s safe to suppose you’ve both become master horsemen?

Tom: I never claim to be a master of anything.

Daniel: Not when you’re riding with people who are world champions and rodeo competitors.

Tom: Yeah. I’d say for a couple of dumb actors, we’re pretty damn good, but I wouldn’t say masters. We do get quite a few compliments from the horsemen that we work with, the wranglers. But I mean we’re not a scratch on them because they’re people who were born and raised on the back of a horse. Up in Calgary, they get put on the back of a horse at 3 years old, so they’re the real masters.

Balancing Fact and Fiction

C&I: Was there ever a point where you were doing historical research of your characters and decided, well, this doesn’t jibe with the script, so I’m going to set this other stuff aside?

Tom: Quite a few times. In Season 1 and Season 2 especially. I would pick up a book and then realize that as much as Pat Garrett wrote a book on Billy, a big portion of that is going to be his perspective, his agenda, whatever he wanted to get out of writing that story — which was fame and fortune. In the same way that that’s probably a lot of myth and legend and not all fact. [Executive producer] Michael Hirst, our creator, is writing his version based on fact, but also filling in the gaps a lot of the time.

Daniel: And it's been [Hirst’s] passion since he was a kid so it’s fueled with that enthusiasm and passion for the subject matter.

Tom: Yeah. And so it’s our job to fill in his gaps and honor his script, really. More than it is to try and honor Pat Garrett’s book, for example. And so I think at a certain point, we both had moments where we went, “Cool, this [research] is really helpful, but actually the script is our bible."

Daniel: There’s actually not a lot to read on Jesse Evans, which makes it trickier. So I have to piece together things by reading from stories about Billy the Kid. But the one thing that was sort of the anchor from Season One till now was the journey that these two go through. And that is chronicled in quite a few different books. And also source material, whether it’s letters or whatnot. But going from friends to rivals to something deeper than both — that was the blueprint to try and follow for the three seasons.

Creative Challenges

C&I: What were some of the more difficult challenges you faced while playing these characters?

Daniel: Well, we had to get these two enemies at the end of Season 2 to being friends somewhat by the end of this season. That felt like something we had to surgically approach, whether it was with the writing or collaborating together. What are the things that we feel like we need to address before these guys can actually trust each other, before they can care for each other as brothers, as this reluctant duo that they are? I would say those scenes were incredibly rewarding to do creatively. And working with Tom and our director and our writers and producers on this — I wouldn't say I dreaded them, but they're hard scenes to do, because we both are coming in with very strong ideas, along with everybody really, because they’re key moments. They're turning point moments that we really have to take these guys through.

Tom: For me, it was anytime another character had to die. Anytime that a character gets killed off and Billy has to lose a member of his gang, I found that really hard because it also meant losing a friend, a cast member. And so you're saying goodbye on screen, but you’re also saying goodbye to a friend that you’ve worked with for a few years. Those were hard days.

Daniel: And there were lots of those throughout the whole season.

C&I: Yeah, there’s kind of a high death rate in this show.

Tom: I keep likening it to The Game of Thrones of the West. Michael Hirst is competing with George R.R. Martin.

Keepsakes From the Set

C&I: OK, final question. What prop or article of clothing did you keep as a memento from the series?

Tom: [Laughs] All of it.

Daniel: Yeah, I took home two full outfits of Jesse’s. One where he is the iconic sort of Jesse — his leather jacket and his green waistcoat — and then one where he essentially goes through a transformation by the end of the season. I took the second version as well because the boots were better.

Tom: Yeah. I got hats, boots, jackets, gun belts. The only thing I didn’t steal was my horse, basically.

C&I: Did you try?

Tom: I tried. They ran me out of Calgary. I’m never allowed back.

Daniel: Probably the saddest thing about finishing the show is not being able to ride those horses anymore, because they’re so amazing.

Tom: Oh my god. You asked what we would miss. I feel like I missed my horse the most.

Daniel: Yeah.

Tom: Any day I get to be on a horse, I’m just so happy.

Daniel: And they’re just so responsive and well-trained, these guys. You had a few. You had multiple horses. I had one till the end, and then they swapped me out, so I had my guy for almost three years.

Tom: Just like anything, you find the horse that you vibe with, that you connect with, and you never want to ride another horse because you’re like, “That's my horse. That’s the one.” It’s like when you find a car that you’re like, “Oh my god. I never want to drive another car.” I don’t know. It’s like having a friend. When you click with it, you really click.