"Lawmen: Bass Reeves" is the latest epic in "Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan's Western universe. That universe—its rugged but stunning filming locations and exquisite period costuming—is a well-oiled machine at this point, series star David Oyelowo told Wide Open Country:
"Because of 'Yellowstone' and '1883' and '1923,' there's an incredible infrastructure that has been built now not just of locations, but of personnel who really know how to do this. All those horses, all those carriages, all those period costumes and weaponry and artifacts — it's a pretty extraordinary machine."
"And to be afforded all those tools with this story that centers a Black man and a Black family—you know, a story the likes of which we've rarely seen with this scope and scale—was a really wonderful thing to be around," Oyelowo added.
"Lawmen: Bass Reeves" takes place between Texas and what we know as Arkansas, but what was then referred to as Indian Territory. The production was based in Fort Worth, Oyelowo told us, and primarily filmed in north Texas locales like Glen Rose, Stephenville and Weatherford, the site of Sheridan's Bosque Ranch.
Paramount+
Recreating the 1880s frontier—its desert towns and wide-open vistas—was no small feat. "You want that big sky and terrain. We had to find an environment without any modernity to it," Oyelowo is quoted as saying in press materials for the show.
Production on the eight-episode series began in Jan. 2023 and lasted more than five months. Filming on-location allowed the show to take on a grand scale, but came with a hefty dose of unpredictable weather and muddy terrain. Some filming locations were three hours away from the production hub.
Per Paramount+, writer-creator Chad Feehan ("Ray Donovan") admitted that "Lawmen: Bass Reeves" was the most difficult TV shoot on which he's worked.
Eagle-eyed viewers might catch visual similarities between "Bass Reeves" and its Sheridan-verse predecessor, "1883." The wagon train epic was also filmed at and around Bosque Ranch. Cinematographer Christina Alexandra Voros, who received an Emmy nomination for her work on "1883," directs five episodes of "Bass Reeves" and serves as an executive producer.
Denim Richards via Instagram
Before production began, the cast of "Bass Reeves" gathered at Bosque Ranch for one of Sheridan's famed "cowboy camps," in which actors learn to ride, rope, herd cattle and more. Oyelowo even joined the "Yellowstone" cast's separate cowboy camp ahead of Season 5, Part 1, as seen in the above photo posted to Instagram by Denim Richards.
Lauren E. Banks, who plays Bass' wife Jennie Reeves in the series, fondly recalls her training with Sheridan's in-house wranglers. "I consider myself a cowgirl at this point," Banks told Wide Open Country.
The actress had never been on a horse before undergoing cowboy camp. In Dec. 2023, she makes her rodeo debut in the Careity Foundation's Celebrity Horse Cutting Competition in Fort Worth, an annual charity contest to benefit cancer patients.
New episodes of "Lawmen: Bass Reeves" premiere Sundays on Paramount+
