Marvel Star Taylor Kitsch Faced a Huge Personal Tragedy While Filming Netflix’s New Western ‘American Primeval’

Taylor Kitsch has truly nailed his performance as the lead in Netflix’s hugely successful Western show American Primeval. However, the realism in his portrayal is, at least in part, rooted in a personal tragedy he experienced. Although he has never been big on talking about his personal life publicly, he is being open about his father’s passing.

Kitsch lost his father during the filming of American Primeval. Yet like a true professional, he returned to work as soon as he could to ensure the smooth production of the show. That, however, does not mean that he was unaffected by the personal tragedy. Luckily, this show gave him a means of dealing with his feelings about it.

Taylor Kitsch’s father passed while he was still working on American Primeval

Born and brought up in British Columbia, Canada, Taylor Kitsch did not get to spend much time with his father as a child because he left when the actor was merely 1 year old. Initially, Kitsch was building a career out of playing ice hockey. Unfortunately, that line of career closed down when he suffered a knee injury.

Kitsch worked as a nutritionist and personal trainer for some time before switching to modeling and eventually becoming an actor. His breakthrough came in 2006 when he starred in NBC’s sports teen drama series Friday Night Lights. He also appeared as Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Every performance of his is incredible and his role as Isaac Reed, a mountain man raised by the Shoshone, is proof of that.

On top of the challenges of portraying an Indigenous man, the emotional weight of losing a family member must have been overwhelming for Kitsch. In a recent interview on Q with Tom Power, the actor revealed that his father passed away on Father’s Day and also that they were not very close.

My dad wasn’t really in my life a lot, so it was kind of—you would think it would be easier, but maybe there were more questions and all this kind of mourning. And everything is so subjective, right? So, um, while I’m playing a guy that’s mourning the loss of his son and wife so that was really interesting.

Then, he went on to detail exactly how he found out that his dad did not have much time left. So, he drove all the way to his home in Kelowna from Montana where he was having an adventure during a break in between the show’s filming.

Taylor Kitsch claimed his father’s passing gave him the chance to reconnect with his brothers

Besides movies like Lone Survivor and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Kitsch has also appeared in shows like True Detective and The Terminal List. Despite having been in such successful projects, he has managed to stay relatively under the radar. So, there is not much known about his dynamic with his family except that he and his brothers were raised by his mother and that his father was not very present in their life.

In an interview with The Day, he reflected on how his father’s passing helped him to reunite with his brothers.

He wasn’t really in my life much at all. In the last 19 years I saw him two or three times. But me and my two brothers made it up in time. I got a call Thursday, and he died Father’s Day, on a Sunday. That helped me and my brothers kind of reconnect, which was great.

During his conversation with Power, he revealed that he had returned to the filming of American Primeval by Tuesday and also that the Native sweats that he undertook under the guidance of a shaman helped him navigate through the tough time.