Taylor Sheridan Didn’t Recognize ‘1883’ Star Dawn Olivieri

• “Yellowstone” and “1883” star Dawn Olivieri said no one recognized her at the prequel’s premiere.
• She told The Hollywood Reporter that creator Taylor Sheridan “greeted me with zero recognition.”
• However, Sheridan was so impressed with her ability to transform herself, he cast her again.

Dawn Olivieri has revealed how it came to be that she appears in the Taylor Sheridan television universe — or the “Taylorverse” as it’s been dubbed by fans — more than once.

It turns out that the actor, who portrayed Claire Dutton in “1883” and is currently playing Sarah Atwood on the present-day series, “Yellowstone,” managed to make a case for her recasting by complete accident while attending the prequel’s premiere back in 2021.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Olivieri said that she drew blank looks from Sheridan, as well as many of her “1883” costars at the show’s premiere because she looked so distinctively different from her severe onscreen character.

“It’s a funny story,” she said. “When filming ‘1883,’ I didn’t get to say goodbye to anybody because I got COVID the night before my final day of filming and wasn’t able to go to set — it was just going to be me in the background for a scene.”

Instead, Olivieri said, she “just disappeared” after her two-episode story arc ended, and only saw the likes of Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Sam Elliott, and Isabel May again several months later at the drama’s premiere.

“For the ‘1883’ premiere in Las Vegas, I got all dolled up. I told hair and makeup that I wanted them to make me real bombshell-y — the complete opposite of Claire,” she continued.

“In the back room before you do the carpet, I was saying hi to people I had spent a short amount of time with, directors and different people, and they greeted me with zero recognition,” Olivieri explained.

“I had to say, ‘It’s Dawn. I play Claire.’ They were like, ‘Oh, my God!’ No one recognized me, it’s like I had a costume on or something.”

The 41-year-old star said that when she greeted Sheridan on the red carpet, he had “no recognition on his face at all” until his wife told him who Olivieri was, and then “it was like a semi-truck hit” him.

“There’s a part of me that just loved that,” the actor, who has also appeared on “House of Lies” and “SEAL Team,” said. “It was such a transformation that even the person who sat there for every single minute of the performance that I gave didn’t recognize me in that moment.”

However, it all worked out in the end as it was her ability to completely transform herself that led Sheridan to immediately decide on the spot he needed to bring Olivieri back in another role.

“He said, ‘You’re coming to work for me now.’ I was real cool about it, but after I went into the corner and screamed like a little girl! Because it’s like your dream offering.”

Olivieri played Claire Dutton, the stern widowed sister of McGraw’s Jacob Dutton, who along with her daughter Mary Abel, joined the rest of the family on their perilous journey West across the Great Plains.

Her storyline came to a tragic end after Mary Abel — her last surviving child out of seven — died, resulting in her taking her own life at her daughter’s grave.

However, her character in “Yellowstone” could not be more different. On the show, she plays the scheming Sarah Atwood, a new counselor working with Market Equities boss and Dutton enemy Caroline Warner (Jacki Weaver). 

Over the course of her time in Montana so far, Sarah has proved that she can easily manipulate Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley), the disgruntled adopted son of Governor John Dutton (Kevin Costner). The two teamed up together to call for his father’s impeachment from office, as viewers saw play out in the show’s midseason finale.