Beau Garrett Had Nearly ‘Lost Faith’ in Hollywood. Then Taylor Sheridan Called.

Spoilers below.

By the time The Madison came into her life, Beau Garrett had thought it might be time to “exit” the acting business. The Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce and Firefly Lane actress had moved to Vancouver Island, had a baby, and watched the fallout of the pandemic and 2023’s SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes rock her hometown of Los Angeles from afar. “Living up here,” she says, turning her Zoom web camera around to show me the ocean outside her window, “I was like, ‘Maybe this is not the world for me anymore.’ I love acting. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember, but it felt very far.”

She continues, “I hadn’t really given up, but I had really kind of lost faith in it and felt very disconnected by way of having a kid, being here, and the business being so different.”

Then a request for a self-tape audition came in. At the time, Garrett’s daughter was eight months old, and in the midst of navigating nap times and scrambling to find someone who could read lines with her in such a remote location, she figured her tape would be “a mess.” But she also had known the casting director for the Paramount+ project, John Papsidera, for “many years.” She wrote him a message, asking, “If you see [the tape] and like it and there’s anything I can do differently, let me know.” Sure enough, he wrote her back with some suggestions.

“We [filmed] it again, this time with one of his readers online,” Garrett says. “And, of course, my power went out, which happens here all the time.” It didn’t make a difference. Garrett’s performance was strong enough to secure her a flight to Wyoming, where she tested for a lead role in Taylor Sheridan’s highly anticipated post-Yellowstone drama The Madison, alongside four other girls. Five days later, she was in the car with her mother-in-law when a call from a number she didn’t recognize came in.

It was Sheridan. “He shot the shit for a little while about weather,” Garrett recalls, laughing. “And my mother-in-law, who’s never been familiar with this world, was just sitting there, eyes wide. And he told me I got it, and I think I’d blacked out at that point. I hung up the phone, and my mother-in-law was like, ‘Kurt Russell’s going to be your dad!’”

In Sheridan’s The Madison, Garrett plays Abigail Reese, eldest daughter of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Stacy Clyburn and Russell’s Preston Clyburn. When, in the pilot episode, Preston and his brother, Paul, die in a tragic plane crash in Montana, the rest of the Clyburn family flies out to identify his remains. But the wealthy Manhattanites end up becoming more attached—and embedded—in the Madison River valley than they first anticipated. Back in New York, Abigail’s life has reached a breaking point: She’s divorced from her ex-husband, Dallas, and struggling to raise her two daughters, Bridget and Macy, on her own. Preston’s death shatters any illusions she might have had about her own independence, and she finds herself attempting to shoulder her mother’s grief as well as her own.

“Taylor [Sheridan] and I met 20 years ago, and he coached me for an audition moons ago, and I hadn’t seen him since,” Garrett says. “So to come full circle, to this point where I felt like he was really taking a risk on me, on this character, it was a real highlight.”

In the final three episodes of The Madison season 1, which dropped today, Abigail and the rest of the Clyburns return to New York after several days in Montana, where Abigail had met local sheriff Van Davis (Ben Schnetzer) and struck up a romance. But New York doesn’t feel the same to her anymore, and she misses Van more than she might have realized. (She ends up calling him when her sister, Paige (Elle Chapman), gets into some unexpected trouble with the police.) When the grieving Stacy goes missing in the finale, Abigail files a missing person’s report, but Stacy has fled back to Montana. With season 2 already filmed, it seems only a matter of time before Abigail (and Garrett by extension) is back in the valley as well.

Below, Garrett discusses the relationship dynamics that made season 1 of The Madison well worth staying in Hollywood—and teases what’s to come in the next chapter of Sheridan’s intimate family drama.

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I’m so fascinated by Abigail’s relationship with Preston, in large part because we don’t really get to see it. We learn about it secondhand, after his death. How do you think Abigail really felt about him?

I think that Abigail’s always been daddy’s girl. He’s also been her biggest fan…and probably the person that’s never really told her the truth. I think she knows that, deep down: that her dad never really was honest with her about her shortcomings or her failures. He never challenged her, because maybe he didn’t have faith in her, which she also didn’t have.

I think Abigail always was seeking her mother’s approval because her mother was going to tell her how she [really] felt, but her dad was the safe place to go to. I think that they had a lot of fun. They were like adventure buddies. I think that there’s a part of Abigail that, when she finally comes to Montana and she sees this place, she’s actually quite surprised with how comfortable she is.

I think that is when she realizes [their family] did lose a lot. She could have had this life that she’s weirdly attracted [to]…she could have known it 20 years ago, and how sad that is! There’s so much about her father that she never asked about. That is so much of Abigail’s grief and hurt and shame is that she never really had an honest conversation with her dad because he was afraid to hurt her feelings, and she knew that.

What about Abigail’s relationship with Stacy? There’s a real tension there despite their intimacy. What was it like working with Michelle to make those relationship dynamics work?

I was so nervous to meet her and to work with her. One of our first scenes out of the gate was us fully going at it in that scene where she calls [Abigail’s daughters] “bitches,” and I was like, “Okay! I got to just step it up.” But we just had a really immediate connection.

This is all my own backstory that’s separate of anything Taylor’s ever written; it’s just how I created Abby to make sense for our relationship: I think that Preston and Stacy didn’t have money when they had Abigail. They hadn’t come into all this fortune until, maybe, midway through her early years. When Stacy talks about, like, “I remember the good old days, when we ate ramen and the power went out,” I think Abigail was part of that life. There’s a real intimacy when a family has come from nothing and then there’s expansion where now they have everything.

I think Abigail and Stacy had this bond from early on that was very different than Paige and Stacy. Because when Paige came, they had money. They had nannies. Maybe as Abigail got older and there were nannies around, other people to take care of her children, there was a disconnect. Abigail never really connects with her mom as much anymore. And she kind of always disappointed her.

Also, Abigail had a baby at 20. She had a different trajectory; life stopped for her. Then she had another child, and she stayed in a relationship for a long time that wasn’t probably healthy because she just didn’t have the balls to get out.

Now she’s realizing that she’s always—maybe underneath—had the confidence and strength, but finally losing her father is making her step up in a way that I don’t think she ever anticipated.

Beau Garrett as Abigail Reese in The Madison.

Do you think that Stacy really recognizes that her daughters are grieving as much as she is? Just in a very different way?

I think she does have a hard time. But I also do think she recognizes it occasionally. They’re all so in their own worlds, and then they have these moments of intimacy because of their surroundings—they have to connect. But I think she’s disappointed in how they’re grieving. If you know somebody who’s lost somebody and you see them and they’re having a coffee and they’re smiling, you might be like, “Well, they’re clearly not grieving.” But they are. They just do it their own way.

I don’t know what Stacy expects, but it’s clearly taking Abigail and Paige a little bit longer to make sense of it all. I think Abigail’s tried. She looked at [her father’s] body; she said, “I want to see it.” She wants to feel it, to touch the fire, but that didn’t work. I think Van is the only person in her life right now that has softened her and maybe allowed her to experience loss because she can’t experience it in front of her mom. She doesn’t feel like she’s capable. And she can’t with her sister because they’re on two different planets. And she can’t with her kids—she has to be there for them. So she doesn’t really have anyone, right?

I think that meeting Van has really surprised her and softened her in a way that she didn’t anticipate.

What do you think Abigail sees in Van and in this relationship? Speaking of unorthodox ways of grieving, it’s interesting for her to strike up a new romance right in the wake of this loss. Walk me through what she’s thinking.

She met him, and he was so different than anything she’d ever experienced. She’s so used to this dating cycle in New York where she has dinner with these guys and thinks they have this amazing conversation, and then she never hears from them again. I mean, I was single for a long time. I remember the experience of going on dates with people and being like, “Oomph. I feel like a horrible human now. That person made me feel really bad.”

And when you meet someone who really gets you, who isn’t expecting anything, who doesn’t have any judgment and is asking questions, is curious, is soft about how they navigate your feelings…It throws you. I don’t think she believes [the relationship with Van] is going to go anywhere. So why not throw it all out there? Like, This is going to fail. So who cares? I’m just going to say all the things I want to say. We’re in the middle of nowhere in a place that is so strange to us and no one’s going to judge me for it, so I’m just going to do it.

I think every time she does that, he reacts in a way that surprises her, and she feels safe. She’s never really felt safe with anyone.

In these final episodes of the season when she’s back in New York, what do you think she is feeling?

I think everything’s a bit louder than she remembered and a bit more aggressive than she remembered. I remember when I used to travel all the time, I would go to places that would just break me open and stick with me. I still think about them. And I think that’s Montana for Abigail. It’s, like, hovering over her. Is it her father? Is it hope? Is it Van? Is it the quiet? I don’t think she knows yet, but it’s something big enough that it’s, like, on top of her. And so there’s a real disconnect with the reality in New York.

She doesn’t know if she’s going back. As far as she knows, she’s in New York to stay. So that’s also very sad. The way Van and her left it off was not great. She doesn’t think she’s going to talk to him again.

And then what happens with Paige makes an easy excuse. She doesn’t have to call him.

But she wants to.

Yeah. I don’t even think she thought about it. That’s just the person she called. Her emergency contact.

Ben Schnetzer as Van Davis and Beau Garrett as Abigail Reese in The Madison.

I also found Abby’s relationship with her daughters so interesting. What kind of role model do you think Abby, ideally, wants to be for them?

We’re a bit different as mothers. I’m a little more hands-on. I think Abigail was for a long time, and I think this divorce has really broken her. She’s a tough-love mom. She also allows these girls to kind of get away with murder because she’s exhausted.

I don’t know that she really knows what kind of mother she wants to be to them because she doesn’t really know who she is right now. I have hopes of who she will be as a mother, but I would say that right now, she is just trying to find herself. Those girls take care of each other.

In the finale, Abigail realizes that Stacy’s gone. She files a missing person’s report when she can’t find her. Why do you think that’s her immediate instinct? Do you think that she has any inkling that Stacy might be in Montana?

No. I think she thinks Stacy might not want to be on this planet anymore. I think it’s as dark as that. I don’t think her first thought is Montana. The first thought is, Is she okay? Where is she? Abigail knows Stacy’s not with Liliana because Liliana would have called her. There’s really no other place in New York that they would have gone. She thinks that something is seriously wrong, and that’s why it’s important to file a missing person’s report so they can look immediately and make sure she’s okay.

I don’t know that Abigail saw the gun [in Preston’s car] in episode 3, but she knows that her mom is on the brink of a meltdown. You can see it in their conversations; even in doing those scenes with Michelle, there was a very fragile and chaotic feeling that came from her that was alarming to work with because it was unnerving. I didn’t know where she was going to go with things. And Abigail has the instinct to stay quiet in those moments and see where it goes before she jumps in.

It’s heavy, isn’t it?

It’s really funny; we would get the scripts and be like, okay. And sometimes it would be like, fever-dream scripts. They’d come to us last-minute; things were misspelled. I was like, “Clearly he wrote this in the middle of the night.” But it was so alive and it [showed the] urgency to tell the story.

So we got this beautiful opportunity to take these words and filter them through the lens of Michelle and our incredible director, Christina[Alexandra Voros], and this amazing crew that gave us so much space. There’s such a well-oiled machine. And in the second season, there’s a very specific scene that we shot that was so intimate and so high-stakes. We were in a tiny room and it was me and Michelle. I swear I walked into that room and it was, like, you could hear a pin drop.

You would have five camera operators in this tiny room, and it would be total silence. There was so much respect for everyone’s jobs. You didn’t have people like, “Hey! Let’s keep it moving because people don’t pay attention!”

Clearly they do. I think this is a really slow-moving show, and people are paying attention. I think we can pay attention. I don’t think we have to have action and movement all the time to keep us entertained or engaged. People grieve and lose and suffer and have family situations that are incredibly uncomfortable and hard to navigate and fail. This show is all those things. I’m really grateful that people are really responding and relating to it.

You’ve completed filming on season 2 already. What excites you about what audiences will see of Abby’s story arc moving forward?

When I was reading the scripts, they were all a bit different than I had anticipated—in a good way. There is a lightness to season 2 that I think is going to be really engaging, especially after the end of season 1. There are moments of real levity. That would be all I could say.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.