‘Outer Range’: Lili Taylor Reveals What Drew Her to Amazon Prime Sci-Fi Thriller (Exclusive)

Amazon Prime Video’s newest series, Outer Range, debuted Friday on the streamer, offering a brooding new thriller for sci-fi fans. Ahead of the series debut, actress Lili Taylor sat down with PopCulture.com to talk about the show and share what drew her to the role. Taylor plays Abbott family matriarch, Cecilia, wife of Josh Brolin’s Royal Abbot.

“It is great writing, it’s a great story and circumstance,” Taylor replied when asked about joining the cast of Outer Range, “and it just, as I’ve been saying all day, it was really kind of like, ‘Wait, are you sure this is meant for me? Was this email supposed to go somewhere else?’ So yeah, I was kind of in shock and just thrilled.” Regarding what she loved about the story when reading the script, the said, “I think it was the blending and it’s really about the human struggles and connections that are going on admits the circumstance. And that’s where if stuff doesn’t have that, then that other stuff kind of won’t hold up in a way, unless it’s so spectacular. But if that’s not there, it’s just very difficult I think for humans to keep tuning in and caring.”

Per an official synopsis of the show: “Outer Range centers on Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin), a rancher fighting for his land and family, who discovers an unfathomable mystery at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness. A thrilling fable with hints of wry humor and supernatural mystery, Outer Range examines how we grapple with the unknown. At the onset of the series, the Abbotts are coping with the disappearance of daughter-in-law Rebecca.”

The Abbotts “are pushed further to the brink when the Tillersons (the gaudy owners of the neighboring profit-driven ranch) make a play for their land. An untimely death in the community sets off a chain of tension-filled events, and seemingly small-town, soil-bound troubles come to a head with the arrival of a mysterious black void in the Abbotts’ west pasture. Wild revelations unfold as Royal fights to protect his family; through his eyes, we begin to see how time contains secrets held in the past and unsettling mysteries foreshadowed.”

Speaking about shooting the enigmatic series on-location in New Mexico, Taylor said, “Through the filming, we had to kind of keep getting clear about what’s going on and we were finding it because on the page it’s one thing, their ideas and stuff, but then when you’re really next to the whole and you have some questions like, ‘Wait a minute, wait, I have a question. Wait, you’re saying that when I…’ It’s like we have to sit around and have a powwow because we got to get clear on what these terms are.”

She continued, “That’s good, it’s hard, but it’s good stuff. And we found that when you’re breaking genres, you have to keep really getting clear about what ground rules are.” The first two episodes of Outer Range are now streaming, only on Amazon Prime Video.