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It isn’t every day Taylor Sheridan writes a character for you, but that’s precisely what happened to Isabel May. 

May, 22, had a handful of acting credits, including Alexa & Katie and Young Sheldon, when she previously tested for a role in one of Sheridan’s other shows, Mayor of Kingstown, and didn’t get the part. But the Santa Monica-bred actress made such an impression on Sheridan. He called her two weeks later and offered her the lead role in the Yellowstone prequel series 1883, playing Elsa Dutton, the 18-year-old daughter who embarks with her parents, James Dutton (Tim McGraw) and Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill), on a treacherous trek across the Great Plains to Montana. 

“‘I want you to be this character in this show called 1883 that I haven’t written yet,’” May tells PEOPLE, recalling Sheridan’s offer. “‘But I want to nail you down so you don’t go do something, and I can’t have you anymore. And I was thinking to myself, 'Well, that's not an issue, for sure.'"

Signing onto a Taylor Sheridan drama requires dedication and perseverance, and in May’s case, that meant gun training, horseback riding lessons in Santa Clarita’s summer heat and practicing the piano for hours in a chapel. It also meant a lack of sleep due to long shooting days and weathering the frigid cold of Montana, where the series was partly shot. 

Emerson Miller/Paramount+

But May “loved” the experience. A voracious reader whose eclectic reading tastes range from Fyodor Dostoevsky to novelist Katherine Dunn, the actress gets the best dialogue on the show as its protagonist and narrator. She also had the unwavering support of McGraw and Hill, who she quickly formed an “organic” connection with. 

“They’re so affectionate towards one another, and there’s this remarkable respect,” May says. “As someone who’s a young woman and maybe will one day be [in] a relationship, to observe a marriage like that, that’s sustained for so long and so healthy, was really insightful. It was beautiful.” 

Buoyed by their offscreen and onscreen support, May’s portrayal is mesmerizing, a nuanced evolution of a naive teenager quickly hardened by the brutality of nineteenth-century America, experiencing more in six months than most people endure in a lifetime.

“She’s someone that was faced with hardship, pain and loss, and despite all of that, still found beauty in the world around her and still found a way to live fully,” May explains. “It’s hard to do when everything around you is wanting to suck you into this kind of miserable role. She became a woman. It's [the story of] a girl becoming a woman.” 

Emerson Miller/Paramount+

Sheridan, for his part, has previously called May a “generational talent,”  comparing the actress to Jennifer Lawrence earlier in her career, requiring little, if any, formal acting training. It’s high praise the actress has difficulty accepting. 

“He's giving me far too much credit,” she says. “He really is. I was watching and learning and soaking. I was trying to be a sponge. And there were really remarkable actors on the set of 1883 that I got to soak up and learn from.”

Sheridan’s judgment of her talent can’t be entirely off base, as May has several projects in the works, including a leading role in the upcoming film The Smack, costarring Casey Affleck, Marisa Tomei and Kathy Bates.

The actress demurs when asked for details about the project, but once production wraps, May is looking forward to jumping in the pilot’s seat again this fall. She needs to log 33 more hours of flight time before she gets her pilot’s license. 

“I've always been envious of birds, that they can just fly up there all alone, be up there by themselves, just enjoy, and look down,” she says. “Now I get to do it.”

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1883 premieres on the Paramount Network on June 18 at 8 p.m. ET and is currently available to stream on Paramount+.