The emergence of Isabel May as the lead in Taylor Sheridan’s frontier epic series 1883 is such an unlikely discovery story that it still has the actress trying to come to grips with a star-making turn that should factor in the Emmy race.

It was in a casting meeting with May for another project that Sheridan discovered she was exactly the actress he needed for the origin story of Yellowstone’s Dutton clan. He was under great pressure to find the handle for the origin story that consists of a harrowing wagon train caravan from Texas to Montana. Something was missing, though. That was, until he met May for the female lead opposite Jeremy Renner in another of his Paramount+ series, Mayor of Kingstown.

Both he and May felt she wasn’t right for that role (Emma Laird played the troubled Iris), but during that meeting Sheridan found the handle for his period epic,...