How Mayor Of Kingstown Landed Isabel May The Role Of Elsa Dutton On 1883

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Isabel May noted that it was an audition for "Mayor of Kingstown" that first landed her on Taylor Sheridan's radar. Sheridan was a co-creator on "Mayor of Kingstown" as well, and May recounted that she, along with two other performers, were brought out to Texas in March 2021 to audition for a role on the show. It was at that audition that May met Sheridan.

She recounted that the audition itself went poorly, to the point that May assumed she wouldn't be hearing back about the role. But two weeks later, Sheridan called her and offered her the role of Elsa Dutton without auditioning any other performers for the role. May concluded that she accepted the role on the spot because she dreamed of working with Sheridan.

While May didn't specify the role she went in to audition for in the interview itself, an article on Deadline specifies that it was for the part of Iris, an escort who finds herself in Kingstown early on in the series' run. Emma Laird ended up winning the role.

The idea of Elsa was also nebulous in Sheridan's mind before May's audition, and only really took shape after her casting. May herself didn't discover that Elsa was the narrator until she received the script for the pilot episode.