yellowstone is nowhere near an expiration date, but that doesn’t mean co-creator/EP Taylor Sheridan doesn’t already know how he wants his addictive drama to end. Speaking at a panel for the series Friday at the Screen Actors Guild headquarters in Los Angeles, star Wes Bentley (Jamie Dutton) admitted Sheridan already has a series finale in mind for the popular Paramount Network drama.
“He told me he knew how he wanted to end it,” says Bentley, who was joined on the podium by Gil Birmingham (Thomas Rainwater), Kelsey Asbille (Monica Dutton) and Dawn Olivieri (Sarah Atwood). “It’s been a while. I’m sure he didn’t know how we were going to get there, but he does know how.”
When asked if he felt a Dutton (or two) had to die by the end of the show, Bentley simply said, “I’m not a Dutton.”
In fact, Bentley already believes his character is practically dead. “I don’t think he’s playing a game here. He wants something left over for his son. I think he saw himself [dead] from before the start of the season. He’s already calculated what’s going to happen to him. He knows what’s coming and he’s trying to make the best of it by making some moves and taking chances.”
“Is he just clinging to power or is he actually trying to do something with the country?” Bentley continued. “I think Jamie has valid questions about a lot of things and that’s the complicated thing about him. He has a good point. He doesn’t necessarily proceed in the right way, or I think in a way that people hate, but it’s his way and that’s who he is.” (Read a recap of the midseason finale here).
Bentley and his co-stars don’t know what’s next for the drama; They are scheduled to resume production later this month to film the episodes, which will air this summer. Instead, the four cast members entertained the SAG audience with stories from the set and what it was like to work with the notoriously withdrawn Sheridan, who prefers to let the actors do the acting.
In other words, they don’t expect much feedback from Sheridan before someone yells Action.
“My first experience with Taylor was in 1883,” said Olivieri, who played Claire Dutton, sister of Tim McGraw’s James Dutton yellowstone Precursor. She now portrays the vixen who seduces Jamie into calling for John Dutton’s impeachment. “And I have to tell you, when the director/writer doesn’t tell you how to act, the first feeling is complete insecurity. Because you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I sound terrible. I’m doing a terrible job. He didn’t say a word to me at all and I must screw it up. He’s just thinking about how to fire me, right?’ But that insecurity is really magical because it gives you that extra power that you didn’t have when you started.”
Birmingham early on recalled a scene with Danny Huston (Dan Jenkins) in which they both had to pretend to play golf. “First of all, it should happen at the golf club. They made me a brand new suit and all. We got on set and Taylor said, “We’re going to play golf today.” I said, ‘Oh, that’s cute.’ He said to go to the pro shop and get kitted out. That’s all he said. So Danny and I were out there, cameras are set up and we’re waiting for blocking. Then I hear: ‘Okay, we roll.’ What? We haven’t blocked anything. So we dig through it and I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s going to come out and fix it.’ He never came out. I said, ‘Danny, I think we’re on our own.’ So we had to direct that whole scene ourselves.”
The actors closed the panel by sharing some of their more awkward encounters fans. Asbille recalled being approached by a police officer at a Walgreen’s, suspecting she was famous but not really recognizing her until he saw her father was wearing one yellowstone t shirt
“He might as well have had an arrow on his shirt pointing at me,” Asbille said of her father, who is “a big fan.”
Olivieri spoke about how an employee at the local hay shop in Arkansas — where she has a ranch and horses of her own — was skeptical of her fame and asked her to wait until his family arrived to confirm her identity.
“Then the cousins roll up in their car, followed by Jim Bob on his tractor,” Olivieri recalled. “It’s such a small town. I was there for about 30 minutes while the whole extended family kept rolling in because they couldn’t believe what was happening.”
Bentley admitted most of his fans just want to pick Jamie apart. “I’m in therapy, which is weird. They want to talk to me about all his problems and what’s wrong with him. Or they yell at me from across the room how much they hate me. But they smile so I feel safe. No one has ever followed me anywhere.”