Bailey Chase & Gerald McRaney

Question: You left a lot of things in the open with the cliffhanger at the end of Season 3. When you wrote that cliffhanger -- and when you did it -- how confident were you that there would be a fourth season somewhere? Was there a time in the limbo where you started to have doubts that there would be a fourth season?

HUNT BALDWIN: Obviously, when we wrote that, we had a lot of story left to tell and had every intention of telling that. And we were surprised that there was a period of sort of a purgatory last season when we didn't think we were going to get to finish. So, needless to say, we are thrilled that we got to move to Netflix and finish telling that story.

Question: Robert, what was that purgatory like for you? You must have wanted Walt's story to finish completely, too, just like everybody else. What's it like in the time when you didn't know if it was ever going to finish?

ROBERT TAYLOR: I thought it was a joke. I didn't believe it. I got a text saying they canceled it, and I thought, “Oh, that's great.” I had an interview that I didn't have to do. They canceled it. I was skiing in Australia, so it was cold. It took me a week or so and I reconciled myself to not doing it again, but I always believed we weren't finished. I just felt it in my bones that we weren't done. And with Peter Roth over here and these three [Executive Producers Greer Shephard, Hunt Baldwin, and John Coveny], we're in pretty good hands, so it worked out okay.

 Robert Taylor, Katee Sackhoff & Adam Bartley

Question: How different will the show be on Netflix compared to what we've seen on A&E?

HUNT BALDWIN: I think the show is going to be different in the end, but we're actually still making the same show that we set out to make. One of the biggest differences about our new environment -- our new home -- is that we're not subject to the same time constraints. We're not subject to the commercial breaks. We’re not changing our approach to storytelling very much, but I think the end result feels very different. It feels more cinematic, and the stories feel more complete and more complex, because we're allowed to keep all the stuff that we envisioned at the beginning.

GREER SHEPHARD: I think you'll find, though, the tonality remains the same. Just because there may be more permissiveness on Netflix, there's no more vulgarity or there's no more graphicness, because we did not want to alienate the incredible fan base that we actually consider to be responsible for our survival.

 Lou Diamond Phillips

Photo Credit: Lewis Jacob/Netflix

Question: What have you learned about your characters in Season 3 that you didn't necessarily know back in Season 1?

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: Well, for me, what I think is amazing about not only Walt but Henry Standing Bear is if you look at our source material, the amazing novels by Craig Johnson, they're all first person, told through Walt's eyes. Season 3 was sort of an epiphany for me because they were taking Henry Standing Bear into places that I don't think Craig would have investigated in his novels. We're very, very true to those characters. There were times when I had to wrap my head around Henry not being a zen warrior and maybe being a little overly caffeinated at times and dealing with some emotional baggage that is not really introduced in the novels.

ROBERT TAYLOR: I guess I discovered that my character was far from perfect. Everything kept going wrong that could possibly go wrong, which is more than enough, I think. That kept me busy the whole season. It's hard to remember Season 3. We just finished Season 4. And people ask me, “What's your favorite episode?” Well, I can't even think what was what episode. I just think of a scene or a moment or something like that. But it's a constant evolution.

Question: Speaking of Season 4, what can you tell us about general arcs or themes about this season that viewers can look forward to?

GREER SHEPHARD: The theme of Season 4 is second chances. And who you are as a person is defined by how you handle the second chance. There are a lot of ways in which people can rebuild themselves after devastating experiences, and we, sort of, explore that theme through each of our characters. You know, how does Vic Moretti reestablish herself after she has had a divorce? Now that Walt thinks he knows who the murderer of his wife is, how does he go on? It's sort of like Ahab and the white whale. Once you've vanquished that and that has, sort of, been your sole purpose in life, who are you? And so you'll see that thematic played out. With Henry, it's, sort of, like, he's been given this sort of newfound freedom. What does he do with it to, sort of, validate the fact that he's been given a second chance?

 Robert Taylor & Lou Diamond Phillips

Photo Credit: Ursula Coyote/Netflix

Question: Is there a new mystery arc, or is the primary arc waiting for the giant shoe we saw in the last episode to drop on Walt's head?

HUNT BALDWIN: Obviously, we threw a lot of knives in the air at the end of Season 3, and a big part of the story we're telling in Season 4 is what happens when those knives fall. What are the immediate consequences of that? How do people rebuild? How do people go on after all that? But as we've always done, we're always trying to introduce new both short term and longer term stories and problems into the lives of these characters.

JUDY SMITH: I would say one of the big story arenas in Season 4 are the issues facing Native Americans on the reservation. There's a horrific loophole in that tribal police and tribal courts are not able to prosecute non-natives who commit crimes on the reservation. There have been some modifications to that law. Interestingly, a story that we were telling, the law changed while we were writing the story, so we had to modify it. But those injustices and those discrepancies are the subject of several of our stories and are going to put Walt and Henry in opposition.

 Robert Taylor, Katee Sackhoff & Lou Diamond Phillips

Photo Credit: Ursula Coyote/Netflix

Question: This has always been a very cinematic show. What does it feel like to you to be able to do a show where you've got these endless vistas?

CASSIDY FREEMAN: Life is a different pace when we're there, and it's such a gift for all of us as actors to get to be there. We get to interact with each other as co-actors. And I think that that land is, in and of itself, its own character. And I think it's important for us to be there and interact with it as well. There's something that changes just in the way that you move through the world when you are there in it and experiencing it, as well as filming in it.

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: There's a huge connection to the land. I mean, when I first started this show four seasons ago and I've been back since I went up to the Lame Deer Reservation in Montana to visit the Cheyenne Nation. I've had the great honor of being adopted into the Nation since then. But this show gets it right. So many of these sets, so many of these locations that we shoot in, have that feeling. They have the history. It is very much inherent in all of these characters and in their connection with their world, and that is yet another, I think, unique aspect of our show that makes us very different from anything else that's on television.

GREER SHEPHARD: There's a lot of the thematics about fatherhood and about being a man. I think one of the big thrusts in Branch's story is the feud over who really is his rightful father and what it is to be a father, you know, the father of a child, a father to a town, you know, a father to the West. And it's definitely it's provides endless story material for us.

HUNTER BALDWIN: And Walt and Barlow are, sort of, these two competing father figures, and they're two guys with distinctly different views of the land and how to develop it and how to protect it and what to do with it. It's I don't think you can tell a story about the West without the land being fundamental.

 Gerald McRaney

Photo Credit: Lewis Jacob/Netflix

Question: Gerald, you've done so many different things, little parts, major parts. Whenever we see you on the screen, you still look like you're so committed to having so much fun. Is that true? Are you still loving being an actor?

GERALD McRANEY: I'm stealing their money. It's that much fun. I am one of the luckiest men you've ever seen in your life. I'll be 68 next month. I've been doing this for 45 years now. To be excited to go back to work every time I do, that's the luckiest thing in the world. And I feel like I've been part of the show from the very beginning. I've worked on a lot of network television, as you know, and quite often, in there, the first thing you want to do when you show up in the morning is "Look, can we talk about this scene?" You want to shorten it, abbreviate it, change it, do something to it to give it some life. It is such a thrill to just walk onto the set in the morning and know that you're going to have a great time because you can trust the script implicitly. They're never going to steer you wrong. Just learn the damn words and get them out; you'll be fine. That has been such a joy on this job.

 Robert Taylor & Cassidy Freeman

Photo Credit: Lewis Jacob/Netflix

Question: Can you talk about coming together with Netflix for Season 4?

GREER SHEPHARD: We already had a lovely relationship with Netflix. They already had an investment in us because they had been streaming our previous seasons. And they invited us in to present Season 4 to them and to talk about the show. And I will tell you, never before have I wept in a meeting. I did because there was there was so much at stake. This has become a way of life for us, and we needed to complete and continue our storytelling. It was an appeal for life.

JOHN COVENY: Netflix said, "We want human beings to enjoy this show. We don't care where they live. We don't care when they want to watch, how they want to watch it. We just want people. And the quality is there and the show has some heart and some soul to it, we need that piece in the Netflix family."

GREER SHEPHARD: It's really pretty wonderful. We had an audience of very, very passionate fans, and we get picked up by Netflix, who, I have to say they are so conscious and caring of the consumer and saw this very, very vocal fan base that had basically been disqualified because they were not seen as sexy to advertisers.

HUNTER BALDWIN: The only addition to the story was the fan outpouring and reaction on social media and in the comments sections of disparate places was really, really touching. It was inspiring. And it was massive.

BAILEY CHASE: If I could add, too, just speaking on behalf of the cast, I know all of us were secretly hoping even though we, obviously, aren't involved in these meetings. We're living and dying by the feedback and "Is this going to happen? Is it not going to happen?" It's the right show on the right network at the right time. And everything happens for a reason. So while everybody was bummed and disappointed and "I can't believe this is happening," it's all worked out tremendously so it's a win-win for all of us.

 Robert Taylor

Photo Credit: Lewis Jacob/Netflix

Question: Internationally, American cowboys are always popular and have been a big factor in the appeal of this series. Robert, because you've got the best view of this, did you grow up hearing about American cowboys? Are American cowboys really big in Australia?

ROBERT TAYLOR: Yeah, they're big everywhere. Australia, I mean, I grew up in a place where my home state is three-and-a-half times the size of Texas. So I had no problem relating to wide open spaces and horses and guns. It's different, but the same. But I've always been intoxicated by the American West and the history

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: Or just intoxicated. [Laughter.]

 Robert Taylor

Question: Had the series ended on Season 3, who do you think would have survived the climactic shoot there?

ROBERT TAYLOR: Nobody.

CASSIDY FREEMAN: No one.

Question: But we only heard one gunshot.

GERALD McRANEY: Well, we could tell you, but then that would be the end of one of the actors. Netflix is very serious about that sort of thing. They keep a sniper in the back of the room for questions like that.

Question: Could you have lived with that cliffhanger?

JOHN COVENY: No, no.

HUNTER BALDWIN: No, absolutely not. We had no intention of ending at that point.

JOHN COVENY: Yeah. We built to that moment, so we're like, "Well, Season 4 is going to happen," and all that pent up "What happened?" will be delivered in Season 4.

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: ...do it in regional theater and put that out.

ROBERT TAYLOR: We do that, anyway.

CASSIDY FREEMAN: Twitter videos. Would've been great.