Ali Larter never imagined she would settle down in Idaho after spending most of her life in Hollywood.

“It unfolded in the most incredible way for us,” the Landman star, 48, reveals about her and husband Hayes MacArthur’s new life in Idaho in the latest issue of Us Weekly. “If you had told me this 20 years ago, even five years ago, I would have never believed that I’d be living in a very small town in the mountains.”

She continues: “We absolutely adore it, and we are so grateful to get to raise our family here. It’s really, really beautiful to live a smaller life with our children during this chapter.”

Larter explains that the idea came about during the COVID-19 pandemic when her and MacArthur’s children’s schools were shut down. (The couple, who wed in 2009, are parents to son Theodore, 13, and daughter Vivienne, 9.)

“It was just kind of a mess. And Hayes and I decided to just go on a road trip and see where it led us,” she recalls. “We drove into the mountains thinking that we could see with the kids [while they continued] Zoom school.”

As the family explored the area, they fell in love with what the local nature had to offer.

“We love being here and being back in the seasons,” she says, “The Aspen [trees] are bright and yellow right now, and to watch that is my favorite time of the year.”

Before relocating to Idaho, Larter grew up in New Jersey and lived in New York City for a decade before calling Hollywood home for more than 20 years. She always considered herself to be a city girl, she says, but after seeing what small-town life could offer her and her family, she decided to “pivot.”

“I always thought I would live in one of those big cities. I loved my time in those places, but I also feel like we didn’t know that life was available to us,” she confesses. “Even if you talked five years ago, Hayes and I thought we had to be in Los Angeles to be an actor. We weren’t at this place where we were like movie stars, and we could just go live anywhere.”

Larter was ultimately proven right as she continues to act while also putting down family roots in Idaho. She is currently starring in Taylor Sheridan’s new series Landman, which premieres on Paramount+ on Sunday, November 17. In addition to Larter playing Angela, the cast also includes Billy Bob Thorton, Demi Moore and Jon Hamm.

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“This was actually an arduous casting process for me. I had to audition three times and then screen test,” Larter shares of the process to get the role. “So I really had to fight to get to have Angela.”

Larter adds that while she was trying to find the best way to embody her character, Sheridan would make changes to the scripts as he developed Angela’s personality.

“From the very first bit that I saw that he wrote about this woman, I knew she was just a complete firecracker and an emotional tornado,” she teases. “And then I had to embody her.”

Landman premieres on Paramount+ on Sunday, November 17.

For more on Larter, pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly, on stands now.

With reporting by Amanda Williams