Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers in Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1.

The Big Picture

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
showcases the harsh Old West setting and the conflict that can come from being pioneers.
Sienna Miller and Sam Worthington discuss their characters’ star-crossed romance and the challenges of filming in a limited time frame.
Miller describes the physical demands of filming the underground tunnel scene, while Worthington highlights the film’s fast shooting schedule.

While Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 sets up a lot in its first movie, one of the things it establishes early on is the unforgiving world of the Old West. When we first meet Sienna Miller’s Frances Kittredge, she is living with her husband, son, and daughter in a small town that is slowly being established somewhere in the Southwest. Their community is a hard-working one that’s committed to settling on the land after making the journey west. However, there’s just one problem. The land they are on already belongs to another group of people: The Apache.

Horizon wastes no time in showing just how quickly fortunes can turn in this world when a group of Apache attack the small community in the middle of the night, killing and setting everything on fire. During the attack, Frances manages to survive by hiding in an underground tunnel with her young daughter and is only found later when she is rescued by the U.S. Army. Taken in by the army, she meets First Lt. Trent Gephardt (Sam Worthington) and the two eventually strike up a romance after tragedy.

We spoke with both Miller and Worthington about their parts in the film series. Specifically, we talked with Miller about filming that underground scene and what it was like filming in such a cramped space. Worthington explained that Gephardt and Frances’ romance is star-crossed and describes the emotional state of the two characters. The two actors also talked about difficulties they faced while filming, with Worthington touching on the fast filming window that made the film feel like an indie film. Watch the video interview with Miller and Worthington above, or read the full transcript of the interview below.

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 Chronicles a multi-faceted, 15-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American west.Release Date June 28, 2024 Main Genre Western Writers Jon Baird

Sienna Miller Describes Filming That Underground Tunnel Scene
COLLIDER: Sienna, I love Frances. I feel like she’s such a tough character who can really roll with the punches, from losing her husband and her son to becoming the only parent for her daughter after a massacre. Can you talk about filming that underground scene when Frances’ house was being burned and talk about what that experience was like? It looked like it was quite a strenuous journey in that scene.

SIENNA MILLER: Dragging your body commando-style through a very small tunnel with a child and a corset and very heavy skirts, it was challenging and it was claustrophobic. Actually, the most complicated part was when we were pulled out of the hole, I had to sort of crouch in a hole that they’d made in the desert, and then they just poured earth on top of us and planks of wood. It was physically demanding. We were inhaling dust, and I’d been pulling bits of dust out of my hair for weeks. I feel like I still have some somewhere. But I love all of that. I love getting down and dirty and feeling like I’m having the real experience that the character’s going through.

Definitely. Abbey [Lee] just talked to me about how intense those costumes were. I cannot imagine being under so much dirt and having to jump out of it like that. It’s insane.

Sam Worthington Calls Gephart and Frances a Star-Crossed Romance
Image via Warner Bros.

It’s pretty clear that Gephart and Frances have their romance. It’s grown from tragedy, but it’s sort of sweet. What kind of obstacles are they gonna be facing in the coming years? I get a sense from some of the footage that I’ve seen that the two are going to be separated. Can you guys speak on that?

SAM WORTHINGTON: I think they’re star-crossed. That’s how I looked at it. That’s what makes these stories interesting is their romantic journeys. It’s also about, they’re withheld characters. If you look at it, they’re withholding a lot. As you said, what she’s gone through at such an early point in this story, she has to hold it together, and then you have this potential stoic military kind of guy, but inside, they’re yearning for emotional connection. That’s what they’re searching for — some kind of companionship, I think. If it is star-crossed then maybe what they’re searching for is directly in front of them, but yet they can’t reach it.

Worthington and Miller Describe Their Biggest Struggles Filming ‘Horizon’

For each of you, what was the most difficult part of filming these films? Was it the climate or filming on location, or was it some other aspect of the story?

MILLER: It didn’t feel labored, it didn’t feel hard. Obviously, it was physically demanding, the scenes that we’ve discussed, but actually, Kevin leads with such passion and commitment. It was really quite a happy set. There are animals everywhere and people in exquisite costumes and makeup, and you’re totally transported into another world. So, I actually loved every minute of this.

What about you, Sam?

WORTHINGTON: Speed. It’s only 50 days. It’s very ambitious.

Was it 50 days just for the first movie or for your entire time on these four films?

WORTHINGTON: No, for the entire filming.

MILLER: We weren’t there for very long.

WORTHINGTON: Kevin took 52 days to shoot it. That’s a very ambitious project.

Oh my God, I was gonna ask you how you manage filming all of these films and then also the rest of your catalog, like all your Avatar sequels, but I guess everything has been done already.

WORTHINGTON: It was very quick, yeah. We were in and out pretty quick, to be honest. There’s multiple stories, so you know you’ve got a limited amount of days to film. So the speed of it is a lot like an independent film. Even though it seems epic in scope and like a sweeping saga, it was very much, really, run and gun.

Related Kevin Costner Is Already Filming ‘Horizon’ Chapter 3 Costner hopes to release a total of four films in ‘The American Saga.’

Wow. So what surprised you about working with Kevin as an actor but also as a director and captain of the ship, so to speak?

MILLER: I didn’t have any scenes with him, so I haven’t had that experience yet. But as a director, he’s living and breathing every single part of this. It’s so alive in his head, and he’s so enthusiastic. He’s so knowledgeable about it. He cares deeply, and that is wonderful to go to work every day with someone who’s there. He’s working so hard on this, and it’s inspiring.