Sam Elliott

Sam Elliot, who stars in the Paramount+ Western series "1883," slammed the Oscar-nominated "The Power of the Dog" for its "allusions to homosexuality."

“What ... does this woman from down there ... New Zealand, know about the American West?” Elliott asked. Elliott likened the cowboys in “The Power of the Dog” to Chippendales dancers. Elliott said that the common depiction of American cowboys as “macho men” is a “myth” and that in his experience, cattle ranching is a family operation.

Actor Sam Elliott, who has played a cowboy for most of his career, slammed Jane Campion's revisionist take on the American West: 'I took it personal.'

“They erase the presence of anyone who isn’t white or male when the west was mostly built by Indigenous, Black, Mexican & Chinese people.” “But what the f— does this woman from [New Zealand] know about the American West?” he asked. He’d walk into the f— house, storm up the f— stairs, go lay on his bed in his chaps and play his banjo. “It’s easy to sum up the movie: It is at once a revisionist Western, a mystery ..., an exploration of masculinity and femininity, a lament for the limits the world puts on us and those we shoulder until we can no longer bear them,” Dargis added. In other words, the myth was no myth; it was reality. There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the f— movie,” Elliott said. And it’s like ... where’s the Western? Where’s the W estern in this western?” Remember them from back in the day?” ‘The evisceration of the American myth.’ It looked like — what are all those dancers, those guys in New York that wear bow ties and not much else? “I thought, what the f—?” Elliott said. But, he said, he’d just come from filming in Texas where he was hanging out with big, multigenerational families — not just men — whose lives were all about being cowboys. Elliott said he hadn’t liked the film anyway, but then saw a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times with a review blurb that said “The Power of the Dog” was — in the actor’s words — “an evisceration of the American myth.” That comment really fried him.

On the 'WTF' podcast hosted by Marc Maron, 1883's Sam Elliott shared he did not like director Jane Campion's approach to 'The Power of the Dog' and its ...

The costuming in the film wasn’t Elliott’s only issue; the film was originally set in 1920s Montana while the production of the movie was filmed in New Zealand. “What the fuck does this woman from down there know about the American West?” criticized Elliott of Campion, “Why the fuck did she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana? And say this is the way it was? Elliott initially made his comments on the February 28 episode of WTF With Marc Maron; on the panel, he referred to Maron as “the WTF guy.” “Don’t go do a podcast whose call letters are WTF,” he joked. That fucking rubbed me the wrong way.” Campion told the Los Angeles Times in 2021 that the decision to film in New Zealand was due to budget constraints. “That’s what all these fucking cowboys in that movie looked like,” he told Maron. “They’re running around in chaps and no shirts. “Where’s the Western in this Western?” Elliott continued. And I feel terrible about that.” Elliott also specifically apologized to the gay community, noting he has had gay “friends on every level, in every job description, up until today with my agent, my dear friend.” And lastly, the actor apologized to the cast of The Power of the Dog and Jane Campion. “I can only say that I’m sorry, and I am,” he said.