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When viewers first heard the gravelly voice of Kevin Costner’s “Yellowstone” character, John Dutton III, back in 2018, he was talking about how the goal of ranching is to “survive another season.” That’s the goal of most TV shows, too, and it’s one “Yellowstone” has accomplished for five seasons now. In the same way that Dutton and his family own most of Montana (or at least the biggest contiguous ranch in the United States), “Yellowstone” has carved out a massive piece of real estate for itself on TV, becoming the most-watched show of 2022 and siring the equally popular Paramount+ streaming spin-offs “1883” and “1923.”
Costner was and is a movie star, however, and by its very nature as an ongoing TV series, “Yellowstone” required him to adjust to a different way of acting. He had previously starred in the History channel miniseries “Hatfields & McCoys,” but the finite nature of that project guaranteed that Costner was never in the dark about his character’s backstory or the overall arc he would follow.
“Yellowstone” is different in that even the writer(s) may not know everything about Dutton and where his story is going, since it’s unfolding across multiple seasons and the character is still very much a work-in-progress. Speaking to IndieWire in 2019, Costner discussed his discomfort with this aspect of the creative process, saying:
“I would like to [know all of Dutton’s backstory], but I’m not always privy to it, no. Sometimes with [John’s] sons or wife or whatever, that’s been really kept in a creative ball. That’s a more vulnerable way to go through life as an actor. […] It hasn’t been an easy adjustment for me. I don’t like it too much.”
Working With A (Short-Lived) Writers’ Room
Like Kevin Costner, “Yellowstone” co-creator Taylor Sheridan has a partial movie background, having written such films as “Sicario” and “Hell or Highwater” and directed and written such films as “Wind River” and “Those Who Wish Me Dead.” Sheridan also wrote and directed every episode of the first season of “Yellowstone,” only sharing a story credit on the first two episodes with series co-creator John Linson.
This gave Costner a firm guiding hand when it came to Dutton’s story in the first season. The second season switched things up, bringing in different directors and a full-on writers’ room to help steer the direction of the show.
For Costner, this is where things became difficult. “We’ve dealt with things,” he told IndieWire, “but this second season was a combination of a writers’ room and [Sheridan], so that wasn’t exactly clear. Now it’s just a straight writers’ room.”
“Yellowstone” has maintained its revolving door of directors, but TV is more of a writer’s medium, anyway, and from its third season onward, Sheridan has penned every episode of the show. This may have given Costner the stability he was looking for, ensuring that he would stick around as Dutton, become the fictional Governor of Montana, and continue to preside over the Dutton dynasty and the growing TV empire of “Yellowstone.”
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