Back to the ‘Prairie’: New ‘Little House’ offers grittier portrait of prairie life

In the new version streaming on Netflix, executive producer Rebecca Sonnenshine went back to the books and discovered there was a grittier story to tell — a story that Michael Landon hadn’t mined.

“What we’re really doing is embracing a very humanistic approach to this show,” she says. “We really lean into creating fully realized characters — people that you want to know, people that you want to root for, people who are trying to make the best of the future.”

The girls — Mary and Laura — aren’t always chummy and supportive.

“The people you love the most are the people you hurt the most sometimes,” says Crosby Fitzgerald, who plays Ma Ingalls. “There’s nothing more realistic than tension in the family.”

Ma and Pa (played by Luke Bracey) are more affectionate than Michael Landon and Karen Grassle ever were.

“It’s all really clear on the page,” Fitzgerald says. “One of the things we connected to was this couple is the couple you strive to be. They fight, but the love is always the strongest thing and the thing they come back to.”

Before they wind up in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, the Ingalls family stakes a claim in Kansas and struggles to get their farm off the ground.

“The intention is to follow the books,” Sonnenshine says. “They moved around a lot.” And, yes, they will get to Minnesota eventually.

When Alice Halsey was called back for an audition to play Laura, “I read the entire series of books," she says. "I just wanted to understand who Laura really was or who my version of Laura would be.”

When she got a chemistry read with Bracey, Fitzgerald and Skywalker Hughes, who plays Mary, she was smitten.

“And then they told me that I got the part and I cried," Halsey says. "It’s been one of the best experiences of my entire life, and I feel so privileged to be part of the ‘Little House’ world.”

Bracey says the casting works because the actors embody the characters’ attributes. “Crosby’s an amazing Caroline because she’s got a giant heart and she cares about everyone around her. And that’s what Caroline does in these stories,” he says.

“Pa really brings this sense of security, not because he’s like, ‘I’m Dad, you’ve got to listen to me,’ but he wants to do his best. And that is Luke,” Fitzgerald says.

Fitzgerald says Bracey "made me cry every night telling me how proud he is of me."

Finding that goodness was important for the show’s producers, Sonnenshine says. When the family encounters members of an Osage tribe, “their minds are opened up," she says. "And that is what this show is all about — being part of a community, getting to know people you haven’t known before and becoming part of a larger story of America.”

When the actors tell others they’re part of “Little House on the Prairie,” they’re greeted warmly.

“For me, it’s a real privilege to be a part of a world and to play a man who is a good man,” Bracey says. “I feel lucky that I’m able to be part of something that is nice that we get to give the world.”

Now working on Season 2 of “Little House,” Sonnenshine says the goal is to bring a new season each year and, yes, follow the Ingalls family as it moves across the Midwest.

“When there’s so much chaos in the world, coming back to what really matters … is what’s appealing,” Sonnenshine says. Being able to tell stories in the framework of love “is a real honor for all of us.”