Texas Rising

Bill Paxton was a distant relative of Sam Houston.

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General Sam Houston's mother was born Elizabeth Paxton; her parents — Houston's maternal grandparents — were also Bill Paxton's six-times great-grandparents, making him a second cousin four times removed from the character he played.

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Brendan Fraser adopted in real life the horse he used for most of the series. The horse is named Pecas, Spanish for freckles, after its freckled coloring.

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan lost forty kilos to play the tubercular Deaf Smith.

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When Santa Anna was finally captured, he was dressed as an infantryman. What gave him away was that his men saluted him upon his capture.

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This was Bill Paxton's last Western before his death.

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who played Deaf Jones, lost 40 kilos for the production by eating a can of tuna a day. He did this because his character suffered from consumption (tuberculosis). Morgan began the film weighing 175 lbs and weighed 130 lbs at the end of shooting.

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This is Ray Liotta's only true Western.

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The Emily Morgan Hotel in San Antonio takes its name from Emily West, also known as Morgan.

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Most of the extras wear clothing that is far too early for a period of more than forty years.

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John Coffee Hays kills a man in a fast-draw in the saloon. In real life this would have been an unexpected feat. It is now accepted that fast-draw contests were not common in the Old West (only one is recorded in history) because of the misfires that occurred when firing from the hip. Old West six-shooters had rifled barrels that spun the bullet for a more accurate trajectory — the flintlock pistols of the 1830s were not rifled, meaning they were ineffective beyond a few meters, as you would likely miss. Moreover, in a fast draw you lift the pistol out of the holster with your thumb, and with a flintlock lock you have no hammer. You have a large lock holding the flint in its jaws. You must use your free hand to pull this lock back, which is impossible to do with the thumb of your gun hand, meaning you cannot draw and fire the weapon in a single motion — a fast draw is a necessity.

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Although most of the hats worn by Texans in this series are "cowboy"-style hats and Confederate-style military hats, reality was very different. The majority of Texans would have worn low-crowned, wide-brimmed hats known as Sombrero Cordobas, like those worn by Zorro and Mexicans of the period. The hats worn by Juan Seguin and Deaf Smith are fairly accurate, though Deaf's brim is not wide enough. There were also many wide-crowned top hats seen in "Mad Hatter" style, and nearly shapeless "floppy" wide-brimmed, round-crowned hats were worn by the poorest. For accurate depictions of the period's hats, watch The Alamo (2004).

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This is the second film in which Kris Kristofferson plays a President of the United States. Before playing Andrew Jackson, he took on the role of Abraham Lincoln in the film Tad (1995).

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This was Bill Paxton's last Western before his death in 2017.

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Robert Baker, Jeremy Davies, Sarah Jones and Jeff Fahey appeared in Justified (2010).

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Rhys Coiro and Robert Baker appeared in Longmire (2012).

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Christopher McDonald had recurring roles on The Good Wife (2009).

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Dennis Quaid played Sam Houston in The Alamo. He and Bill Paxton appeared together in Crazy Mama. Both appeared as different characters in films about Wyatt Earp: Paxton played Morgan Earp in Tombstone, while Quaid played Doc Holliday in Wyatt Earp.

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Robert Baker and Jeff Fahey appeared in Grimm (2011).

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Jeremy Davis and Jeff Fahey had recurring roles in Lost (2004).

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Robert Baker took on recurring roles in Grey's Anatomy (2005).

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