‘Yellowstone’ Project’s Real-Life People Lured Kevin Costner To Show – The Contenders Emmys
For most of his career, Kevin Costner has been known for his work on the big screen in films like The Bodyguard and Hidden Figures. But it was getting out in nature to tell the story of a family of ranchers that lured the star into a television project for Paramount Network titled Yellowstone.
Costner said there aren’t enough stories in the mainstream about real life people that work the land like his character John Dutton, during a presentation at Deadline’s The Contenders Emmys on Sunday.
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“The idea of seeing wide open spaces, when the land was almost like the Garden of Eden,” Costner said about why he decided to work on the series. “I think that we see a lot on TV and really great TV. To know that places like this still exist in our country, adding drama against its backdrop, and actually understand in the realest terms that the meat that arrives on our table is still coming from somewhere. It’s coming from people that are getting up early in the morning and work really late.
There’s a lot of America that seems like it’s behind a curtain, that way of life still exists. I am drawn to that and I don’t know many people that aren’t. That when we go out into it that we see it. And when you put a drama against that background, I just think it’s very compelling. We don’t see that enough. I don’t think that we get outside enough, if you will.”
Kelly Reilly is a huge fan of her character Beth Dutton, daughter of Costner’s Dutton and admits she’s having a blast playing her.
“I do have fun playing her,” she said. “She’s the best character I’ve ever played. Taylor Sheridan created a monster with her and I love her so much. The layers, the vulnerability, and the brokenness of her. The fierceness of her, she’s someone straight out of a Shakespeare play or some Greek goddess or something. I couldn’t get a enough of what I read and as we continued on the journey of the show, she just got bigger.
The loyalty, the thing that roots her is the love of her father who she would do anything for. All of the crazy kind of goes out the window and then she become his foot soldier or his general It’s either one or the other. General, probably.”
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