According to Tim McGraw, working with wife Faith Hill on the Paramount+ series "1883" was like a slap in the face — literally.
McGraw, who's been married to Hill since 1996, told "Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon Wednesday that he got hit multiple times by her for a scene that they were filming. However, it was much harder than he imagined it would be.
"I was expecting a finger slap," he told Fallon. "No, it was a palm. It was like Rocky hitting me."
He noted that they'd talked about her having to smack him before cameras rolled. "We didn't want to do a TV slap; we wanted to do a real slap," McGraw, 55, said. "But after about the eighth take ... I was concussed a bit.
"I told her afterward, I said, 'Do we need to talk? Is there something going on that I don't know about?'"
McCraw and Hill have shared many experiences — from being on tour to parenting three daughters (Gracie, 25, Maggie, 23, and Audrey, 20) and making music videos — but have never acted together.
Then "Yellowstone" co-creator Taylor Sheridan asked McGraw to do some flashback scenes for his series, an idea that eventually became a "Yellowstone" prequel, "1883." The pair play a former Confederate soldier and his wife who join a wagon train heading West, ancestors of the main characters seen in "Yellowstone."
And it gave the two musicians a chance to work on their acting chops, together.
"We’d never done anything on screen together other than videos," he told Fallon. "It was so cool to be able to work with her. She blew me away every single day. She was so nervous ... she showed up every day and just blew me away. She elevated my game."
But he knew it would be challenging, even if he didn't know just how hard she'd end up smacking him.
"We said, 'You know, it's going to be tough, because people are going to see Faith and Tim on screen and we have to overcome that," he said. "So we gave each other a high five and and gave each other a kiss and said the only way to do it is to be good at it."
Mission accomplished!