Katie Findlay Says Their Walker Independence Character’s LGBTQ+ Arc Is A Gift – Exclusive

Katie Findlay reflected on the highlights of exploring gender and sexuality in the 1800s through Kate: “Part of the beautiful thing that I’ve experienced on this show is connecting queerness, Blackness, Indigenous history, Chinese history, Latinx Mexican history, and quite frankly, sex worker history, working-class history.” The series wanted to add that level of authenticity, as Findlay explained. “All of these people knew and supported each other the entire time … We often lose that narrative-wise in history for pointed reasons.”

Through the series, Findlay has learned a lot about their own identity and how LGBTQ+ individuals expressed themselves back in the Wild West. “I had no idea the extent of it until I got to sit in this show for a little while, and every moment of Kate’s queerness is a gift to me. She was queer to start with,” Findlay noted. “It wasn’t just because of me … When I started asking for it, I was told, ‘This is what we were thinking for her anyway. But if you would like this person to be queer in the way that maybe you are queer, let’s go for it.'”

The creators letting actors weigh in on their characters was the right move both for adding realism to the characters and giving the actors more to work with. “[That] is a joyful and integral choice that I appreciate very much,” Findlay noted.