What Julia Schlaepfer's Relationship With Yellowstone 1923 Co-Star Brandon Sklenar Is Really Like

On the Paramount+ smash hit "1923," which is part of Taylor Sheridan's "Yellowstone" universe, Brandon Sklenar and Julia Schlaepfer play star-crossed lovers. He's Spencer Dutton, an American abroad who's suffering from extreme PTSD caused by World War I. She's Alexandra, the Countess of Sussex, and when she meets Spencer in Africa, they instantly fall in love. He was a rancher; she was a royal. To quote the great Avril Lavigne: Can I make it any more obvious?

To the delight of the show's fans, in interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, Sklenar and Schlaepfer appeared to have gotten along extremely well in real life. Their chemistry on screen is so electric that fans naturally speculated about just how close they got, wondering whether the actors fell for their on-screen love interests. After all, at first, it seemed like Sklenar and Schlaepfer were inseparable, frequently joking around and supporting one another as much as they could.

As the series drew to a close in 2025, Sklenar told People, "We spent almost three years with these people. And I've never done a series before and it was ... such an incredible life experience for Jules and I." However, eagle-eyed fans soon noticed some hints that not all was right between the co-stars. Read on for a peek at what Schlaepfer's relationship with Sklenar is like in real life.

Oftentimes, when two actors are going to be spending a significant amount of time together on set, producers will get potential hires together for what's called a "chemistry read." Actors will run lines and get to know one another, making sure that they look like a believable couple on camera before they're actually offered the part. After all, if it's clear that the actors can't stand each other, or their specific styles just don't match up, you're not going to want to commit to having both of them in your cast.

That didn't happen with Brandon Sklenar and Julia Schlaepfer. The actor behind Spencer Dutton told People that showrunner Taylor Sheridan didn't see the need to get them together before he gave them their parts. "[He] knew that we would get on just by spending time with us individually," Sklenar said. 

Thankfully, it all worked out, and Sklenar and Schlaepfer got along swimmingly. "We had incredible chemistry from the jump, and it was so easy to work together and to fall into it," he reflected, noting that he and his scene partner communicated off-camera with pretty much the same banter that their characters enjoyed. "If you don't have that and you do those scenes, it's not going to hit the same way," he said. Schlaepfer felt the same way. She told Us Weekly, "We just immediately connected when we met. There was an instant bond that we had."

While most members of the cast of "1923" filmed their Season 1 scenes together in the United States, Julia Schlaepfer and Brandon Sklenar were separated from the other Duttons. Their storyline took place in Africa, and they filmed there, too, on a whole different set separate from their counterparts in the West. That meant they had a lot of downtime together just the two of them.

Their Season 1 filming schedule was grueling, demanding that they be on set for six days a week. "Every seventh day, we'd get in a van or a plane and fly somewhere else," Sklenar told People. They had numerous incredible experiences together during that time. "We were like, 'What the actual f***? This is crazy. We are in Africa,'" Sklenar recalled. "Like elephants are eating out of our hands and stampeding."

In fact, Schlaepfer told People that their connection kicked off back in Montana, during what the show called "cowboy camp." The training facility taught the actors how to pretend to be ranch-hands, and the two scene partners used it as a chance to bond. "We'd just go ride horses together every day, we'd eat all our meals together, we got manicures and pedicures once together," she said. "We just did all of the bonding, and then when we left for Africa, we were just by ourselves in Africa, so it was nearly impossible for us not to get thick as thieves."

Like the actors who played them, Spencer Dutton and Alexandra of Sussex have instant chemistry when they meet in the first season of "1923." It doesn't take long before the characters are madly in love; soon, they're married, pregnant, and trying to make their way back to Montana. Along the way, the grand, sweeping, continent-hopping love story contains a few moments of steamy passion, making it impossible not to root for the two to end up together and safe.

Despite all appearances, Julia Schlaepfer told Taste of Country that she couldn't really separate their kissing scenes from the context in which they were filmed ... which, to be fair, is probably the professional way to look at it. "Alex thinks Spencer's a great kisser," she said, dodging a question about Brandon Sklenar's skills. She elaborated that filming conditions on set were not conducive to actually enjoying something like that, no matter how hunky the costar. "We were traveling constantly. We were dirty. We probably stunk. We were gross," she said. "Probably like half the time that our characters had to kiss, like, we had just eaten, like, a sandwich or something ... We were truly living in Alex and Spencer's reality."

In fact, they had to film kissing scenes in any and all situations, including when the cast had food poisoning. "It was e. coli poisoning from the water," she said. "The whole cast and crew got it." Not very romantic!

Even in ideal situations, it can be pretty uncomfortable for actors to shoot sexy scenes. After all, you're trying to pretend that you're enjoying a private moment with someone, but you're surrounded by other cast and crew members, all watching and filming as you do what most people only do alone. That's where intimacy coordinators come in. These professionals will advise productions about the best way to make sure everyone on set is comfortable, from the director on down to the actors and crew members. 

Brandon Sklenar told Above The Line that he already wasn't too nervous about filming intimate scenes with Julia Schlaepfer. "We hit it off from day one and got along, which just makes this a really safe working environment, especially when you're doing a lot of intimate work, whether physically or emotionally," he said. "[It's good] to be able to look across at the person and know that they're there with you, that they're present, and that you're not afraid to fail."

"1923" had an intimacy coordinator on set making sure that everything was above board. "It's really good to have [those]," Sklenar told the outlet. "It's just good to have someone who can hold space. It's not easy to shoot those things." Perhaps that's something Sklenar learned the hard way. After all, he starred in "It Ends With Us," and he's likely quite familiar with the director's rumored feud involving Blake Lively after she requested an intimacy coordinator.

It can be easy for actors to get lost in their characters, especially on the set of something like "1923." After all, you're pretending every day that you're going through something that, for most people, would be traumatic. In Spencer Dutton's case, he's plagued by memories of World War I, trying to find his way home while grappling with what he was forced to do while at war. Thankfully, Brandon Sklenar told Above the Line that he and co-star Julia Schlaepfer tried to keep things light. "It's nice to have levity on a set like this when it can be very heavy sometimes," he said. "And it's important to remember that you're just making a thing."

That's a sentiment that Schlaepfer echoed in a video for the show's official Instagram. "Who's more likely to break during a funny scene?" Schlaepfer pondered. "We are both culprits. We're bad." Sklenar chimed in, clarifying, "Even serious scenes. Really serious scenes." Schlaepfer smiled, "Those are the ones we break in the most! So both of us are really bad."

As fans know, the second season of "1923" ended with quite the tragedy involving a baby. Sklenar tried to cheer his co-star up by joking around with the prosthetic baby between takes, telling TVLine, "It was a heavy couple of days, so it was a nice little shot of levity. But being the protective mama she is, she did not let me around that baby all that much."

Though they spent much of the show's first season off in their own little world — here meaning Africa — Brandon Sklenar and Julia Schlaepfer were unfortunately separated for much of the filming of the second season. After all, Alex has to make her way back to Montana alone, meaning the actors didn't have as much on-set time together this time around. Toward the end of the season, however, Alex and Spencer finally get to reunite, and Schlaepfer told Decider that she needed that moment. "I don't think I realized how much I needed a hug from someone who I knew could protect me. It was a really, really tough season for me."

Sklenar said he, too, was relieved to be working with Schlaepfer again. "We hadn't seen each other in a long time, so it was easy to translate that excitement to the interactions between Spencer and Alexandra," he said.

The romantic reunion involved a long run across a snowy landscape, and Schlaepfer told Elle that it was tough to film. "I probably did it for 45 minutes one day, just running back and forth, back and forth," she said. "There's so many takes where I eat s*** in that snow; it was so slippery. Same with Brandon." If there's one thing we know about these two, it's that we can safely assume that they were making each other laugh as they fell.

Julia Schlaepfer and Brandon Sklenar have some pretty electrifying chemistry together on screen. Considering their apparent off-screen love of one another's company, it's only natural that fans began to speculate that something was going on between the two in real life. A post on the blind-gossip blog Crazy Days and Nights — which, to be clear, is wholly unverified and unreliable — suggested that two cast members on a certain Western-themed show may have hooked up, throwing even more gasoline on the fire. 

Despite all of the rumors, Sklenar and Schlaepfer are not dating in real life. In fact, Sklenar is in a long-term relationship with Courtney Salviolo, a nutritionist. They met on Hinge, as he explained to Entertainment Tonight. "It was right when COVID happened ... How am I going to meet somebody?" he pondered. "I was like, 'Oh I'll get on this...'"

Speaking with Forbes, Sklenar said he enjoys the working, traveling life of an actor, but he does feel that his job takes him away from what he would prefer to be doing. "I'm a homebody" he said. "I love to be home with my partner and my dog and my house." Can't blame him for that! For the record, Sklenar is not the only cast member who has shared details about his love life. We've learned about several of the real-life partners of the cast of "1923" since the show premiered. 

This slide contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of "1923."

After all of that — after their love story took them halfway around the world, and after their romantic reunion came as such a cathartic relief to both actors — the second season of "1923" ended in tragedy. The "Yellowstone" universe is a collection of shows where nobody is safe, and that's certainly true for Alex Dutton, who didn't survive the series. She died tragically after giving birth to the son she shares with Spencer, climactically naming him John — seeming to reveal that Spencer and Alex are the ancestors of "Yellowstone" star Kevin Costner's character.

As her last words, Alex manages to give Spencer some advice. "If he's anything like me," she says, "he'll be a terrible child." The lines resonated with Julia Schlaepfer, who told People, "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 — and she's still cracking jokes." Brandon Sklenar, on the other hand, was devastated by the turn the story took. "It f***ed me up, man," he told the outlet. "I was a f***ing mess. I mean, I'm a snotty crier, so it's not pretty. It's ugly, and there's a lot of snot coming down, so it's a whole thing."

After filming "1923" took Brandon Sklenar and Julia Schlaepfer halfway around the world, and after they spent several years acting in interviews like they were best friends in real life the finale of "1923" aired in April 2025. Their characters had been reunited and then torn apart once more, and the actors had once again been taken on a press tour to talk about their sizzling on-screen chemistry. Then the finale aired, and fans noticed that Schlaepfer no longer followed Sklenar on Instagram.

The confusion on the r/1923Series subreddit was palpable. "These two were [all] over each other's socials in Season 1. Like boyfriend/girlfriend behavior. What happened between these two? SPECULATE AWAY!" one post suggested. "Something happened, and then they just kept following each other for PR," a fan proposed. "She [definitely] couldn't wait to hit the unfollow not even a week. Like damn." One fan even pointed out, "His girlfriend follows the entire cast except her ... ya know, the person he worked with exclusively for 6 months."

Neither actor has spoken out about what happened here, and as of press time, Sklenar still appeared to be following his co-star. It's certainly possible that this is all a misunderstanding; who among us hasn't hit the wrong button on one of those always-changing social media apps? As of this publication, this isn't one of the scandals that will always haunt the cast of "Yellowstone."