Wes Bentley Says His ‘Yellowstone’ Character Was Already a Lost Soul — What Is He Now Without His Father?
[This story contains spoilers from the second episode of season 5B of Yellowstone.]
Yellowstone answered its largest looming question with last week’s season 5B premiere when the Paramount Network series revealed that departed cast member Kevin Costner’s John Dutton has died, the result of a murder-for-hire plot that is masqueraded as death by suicide. With its second episode in the mega-return of TV’s No. 1 series, Yellowstone mastermind Taylor Sheridan again wasted little time before delivering on the next highly anticipated moment: What will happen when warring siblings Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and Jamie Dutton (Wes Bentley) come face to face?
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Yellowstone viewers got that answer when the second episode returned to the present timeline and Jamie, Montana’s Attorney General, finds his sister waiting for him in his office. In her bones, Beth knows that Jamie is responsible for their father’s death, but she needed to look him in the eyes in order to get her proof. When Jamie can’t look his sister in the eyes, she slaps him. She slaps him again, and again, and he still can’t meet her gaze. Beth storms out of the office with the proof she needed — along the way, she body-slams Jamie’s girlfriend Sarah (Dawn Olivieri), who viewers now know orchestrated the hit on John, with Jamie’s knowledge — and she calls her other brother, Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes) to tell him what Kayce had trouble believing, until now: Their brother is responsible for their father’s murder.
“Jamie is in a place where he’s dangerous because he’s unpredictable and he’s unpredictable because he’s taken a big, wild swing right now and if this doesn’t go well, he knows it’s probably over,” Bentley tells The Hollywood Reporter of his character, who finds comfort in Sarah after taking the beating from Beth. In the chat below (which took place ahead of the season 5B premiere), Bentley talks about getting back into Jamie’s head after the 18 month-break in filming, looks ahead to what Jamie can be when finally free of John, and weighs in on if he would like to stick around if Yellowstone does continue on with a possible sixth season.
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I spoke to you between season 5A and 5B about how intense playing Jamie Dutton can be for you, and how hard of a character he is for you to shake. When you geared back up to film after such a long break, how did you get back into character?
We had some time from when I first read the script to then get back into it, and what I did do is that I had never really watched the show back, except for season one. I just didn’t have a chance to catch up to the show while we were shooting it. Then I found that was actually working for me, so I had planned to wait to watch the show back later [after we were done filming]. . I’m dying to watch the show, but it was more of a choice where it felt it was helping me to do something with the character that I thought maybe I wouldn’t do if I was watching it as an observer. But in this break, I decided I would start watching it again to get myself back into the groove. What I ended up doing was actually watching some scenes. Because I didn’t want to have my full watch yet, I’m still waiting for that.
Did you go back and watch your midseason finale fight with your sister, played by Kelly Reilly?
Oh, yeah. I watched that one. And the one before that. I watched a few key scenes that I hadn’t quite seen yet.
We don’t know what’s going to happen between Jamie and Beth this season. But it seems fair to say that these six episodes will be the most intense hours of Yellowstone ever. How Method did you go when filming, how Jamie were you on set?
(Laughs) It’s funny, I think I may have said this to you when we talked about this last time, I’m not a Method actor in the sense that I need to fully embody the character or dive that far in all the time. But when playing this role for seven years, it felt like it happened to me. It felt like the Method was happening without me really desiring it! So yeah, it hit quick. As soon as I was back in, it’s everywhere. Mostly for me with Jamie it’s the self-loathing and the emptiness, the shallowness. He’s lost and has no identity whatsoever. It’s really hard to let that be in my world and figure out when I’m feeling that way and when he’s feeling that way. So that was back, for sure.
What can you tease about how you and Kelly will square off this season?
I can’t say too much; I don’t want to spoil it for anybody, because I can pick up any little hint of foreshadowing. But it is more dramatic and more intense that it has ever been. The stakes are higher than ever — they don’t chill out! They’re not making peace. So where we saw them at their last, we’re going right into that feeling of danger. Jamie is in a place where he’s dangerous because he’s unpredictable and he’s unpredictable because he’s taken a big, wild swing right now and if this doesn’t go well, he knows it’s probably over. So there are a lot of stakes here and Taylor [Sheridan] really delivered.
You did have a correct prediction when we spoke after the midseason finale: You predicted that not all of the Duttons would survive this. That was before we knew Kevin Costner was exiting the show, so there could still be more who won’t survive. But what does this Dutton family civil war look like without John in the picture? I’m very curious to see what Jamie looks like free of John.
The things I’m about to say, I want to be clear, won’t tip off anything, but for John’s relationship with Jamie, it’s a more important relationship than with Beth. Beth’s anger with Jamie is something that Jamie did to her. Jamie moved on in life from that because he could, and he’s a jerk and didn’t look back on it until later in life. His focus was always at John [who was revealed to not be Jamie’s biological father in season three; the Duttons adopted him as a baby], and Beth keeps popping up in the way to start fights and resolve her things. So for Jamie, everything he’s doing in life… John is the one who told him who to be. And when Jamie became that, John demanded so much more out of him and was never satisfied with him. So if John’s gone, and Jamie is already a lost soul, what is he going to be then? Who is he aiming at? What’s his fight about? What are his real feelings? So, not to say what’s coming, but if you don’t have John for Jamie, it’s interesting to find out: What is that to him? So maybe we’ll see that.
As an actor, we have watched you and Kevin Costner square off similarly to you and Kelly Reilly. What was set like without Kevin?
Well, I actually haven’t worked much with him or anyone in the main cast much for a couple seasons in a row, I think ever since the 2020 season four. I’ve really had sparse interactions, so I’m used to not seeing any of them! I’m off on my own storylines and my own sets that no one else ever enters. (Laughs) So I kind of got used to that with the entire cast.
Your director Christina Voros told me about the Marvel-like security that was put in place to keep spoilers from leaking. She said the main Duttons are in the know about how it all ends, and that the ending will leave people wanting more but is also “beautiful, riveting and unexpected.” How did you feel when you read the ending?
I felt what I felt in every season that I read, I felt the power of it. It’s pretty powerful, these scripts and these shows. I know they’re very dramatic, but that’s sort of the power in them. And this season I think is the most of that. It’s the most emotional and I think the most invigorating in the sense that the danger is palpable and immediate, so I was really satisfied. It was quite a nice feeling to know that’s where we were heading. But also, it’s sad because I’m invested in the story, and only sad in the sense that we’ve come to a certain point in the story where there are changes.
You hinted at retiring Jamie the last time we spoke, but there are talks of possibly doing more Yellowstone and whether or not that happens, there’s a whole Yellowstone-verse where you could pop up. Do you have interest in continuing to play in this world, or are you looking to do something different next?
Oh yeah, I’d be interested in both. It’s a very hard character to play but if asked to carry on, I would do so. It’s been great to work with Taylor, so anything in his universe. But at the same time, I’m an actor who was thinking I’d be doing films my whole career so six weeks was the longest I was going to be invested in anything. So I’d be excited to also move on in life and see what’s next for me out there. I want to do this for as long as I can. If I’m lucky enough.
This show is returning right after the election and a divided time in the country. Yellowstone was once labeled a “red-state show,” and that was shot down by Taylor Sheridan. The series speaks to everyone, and it’s sparked a Western craze with its success. Do you think there will be more shows like Yellowstone that appeal to rural America as well as urban America?
Yeah I think we will see that, mostly from the fact that the show is a hit more than where the culture is going right now. In Hollywood it’s simple math. “Was that a hit? Let’s do a version of that, please. I’ll take 10 of those!” (Laughs) Yellowstone is a big, unexpected hit. It’s actually a relief that it wasn’t cornered into being just called a red-state show. I do think it avoids a lot of the current stuff while speaking vaguely to us in general terms. So I think in some ways, people can escape. While it is something about us, it’s also a little bit not about us, and so we are allowed to escape into it and we can all do that together.
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Yellowstone releases new episodes in its six-episode season 5B on Sundays at 8 p.m. on Paramount Network, followed by a linear premiere on CBS at 10 p.m. Head here for how to stream Yellowstone and read THR‘s premiere chats with Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser, Luke Grimes and Kelsey Asbille, and director Christina Voros; and our week two chat with Voros on Beth and Jamie’s confrontation.
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