Julia Schlaepfer Breaks Silence on '1923' Ending With Telling Admission
WARNING: Spoilers Ahead
The second season of 1923 came to a close on April 6 with a heartbreaking two-hour long finale that saw a beloved character meet their end.
Before the finale - and even the start of the show - actress Julia Schlaepfer had an inkling about her character, Alex. In the end, she was right, much to the chagrin of fans everywhere who had a different outcome in mind for the strong female character.
In attempting to make the treacherous journey cross-country to Montana to reunite with her lost love, Alex becomes stranded in the Wyoming elements where her husband Spencer comes to rescue her. While the tale could have had a happy ending, show creator Taylor Sheridan had something else in mind.
"Before we started filming season 1, when Taylor [Sheridan] took us to dinner, I literally sat next to him and I was like, 'I'm dying, aren't I?' Like, 'I'm going to die,'" she told People after her character succumbed to complications from her frostbite.
"I don't know yet. You might not. I don't know," she recalled Sheridan saying. "I think he did have a couple different versions in his head. No one knew. No one knew for sure. I don't even think he did for a long time."
"I had this feeling. I don't know why. I think I just had a feeling that that's how it would go," she added. While she had a feeling about her character's end, "Nothing can prepare you for reading it for the first time, or seeing it, or, especially, performing it. That hit different."
Schlaepfer, 30, knows there is meaning in her death, though.
"I think she knows what the reality of her situation is. And I think also she makes a choice, you know? She makes a choice for her family and for her baby. And she's going to spend the remaining minutes, seconds, hours of her life that she has making sure her baby stays alive, even if that means she doesn't ... Oh gosh, it's horrible, isn't it?"
She understands fans will take the loss hard, but hopes they see her sacrifice as worthy of their attention and time. In the end, Schlaepfer feels like a part of her was also lost in the show's finale.
"I know people are going to be so upset because she does suffer so much. But you know, I think her ultimate sacrifice at the end, in giving her life, just shows how strong she is. And you know, it's such a testament to who she is," she said. "...I feel like I put so much of who Julia is into Alex, so it feels like I've lost a piece ... Like I've lost myself in this."
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