Yellowstone fans know Boots Southerland as ruthless villain Wade Morrow. But according to his on-screen son, Brent Walker, he’s as fantastic a’ cowboy as they come.
When you work with someone as closely as Brent Walker worked with Boots on Yellowstone, you get to know a gent. The two play father and son duo Clint & Wade Morrow throughout the hit Western’s breakneck Season 3 to fantastic results. Fan favorite villains would result, but audiences may be surprised at just how kind Sutherland in comparison to his raucous backstabber.
“Boots is awesome, man,” Walker tells Outsider for our exclusive chat. His wide smile can be heard from behind his words. “Boots and I became great friends, he’s such a legend and a great guy.”
The two first met over dinner in Park City as prep began for Yellowstone Season 3, but knowing their prior careers makes this fast-sparking friendship a no-brainer. Brent and Boots both are true-life cowboys, each becoming men through the grueling work it takes to earn that moniker. Boots himself has been in the business of making Westerns since 1989’s Lonesome Dove, and outside of Yellowstone, audiences have seen him in countless genre classics like co-star Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp, Young Guns, No Country for Old Men, and Hell Or High Water.
“Boots has been in the Western world a long, long time,” Walker continues. “He lives in New Mexico now and works the New Mexico scene quite a bit. So getting to feed off that for Yellowstone was just too cool, you know? We were a team against everybody else. That’s kind of how it played out for us.”
‘Yellowstone’s Brent Walker on Boots Southerland: ‘My Partner in Crime’
“We’d eat together, hang together; he was like my partner in crime,” Walker laughs. Instantly, fond memories flood to mind for the actor and cowboy. Specifically, the first day riding to set with Southerland would prove memorable.
“We were all in the van on the way to set on the first day of shooting and I had my script in hand,” Brent says. “And I might’ve had only one line that first day. It was not much, whatever it was. I was kind of his sidekick there at the beginning, as it should be.”
Brent couldn’t help but notice the look on Boot’s face across the bench seat.
“Man, where’d you get that script?” Boots asked.
“They sent it to me!” Brent recalls replying.
“Well they haven’t sent me anything!” Boots replied with a grin.
“So I was like, well, bud, you better take mine ’cause you’ve got a lot to say today!” Walker laughs. “So we bonded through fighting over my script that first day. He’s a hilarious guy, super salt-of-the-earth soul. After that it was all great.”
Bring On Kevin Costner
Another particularly memorable day would come filming the brutal diner (or cafe’) scene with Sutherland and Kevin Costner’s John Dutton, which Walker chats up extensively with us here.
“Boots was sitting right there – and every time Costner would hit me with the whole deal, he’d say ‘Boy, he really hit you that time, didn’t he?'” Walker recalls with a Boots-esque growl. “He was right there the whole time, so it must’ve looked good enough to him!”
Throughout their time together for Yellowstone Season 3, Boots would coach Brent on far more than just how to take a punch from Kevin Costner, too.
“He was my go-to for the Western pantheon, too. Western history, really,” Walker says of his iconic co-star. “He’s a goldmine when it comes to knowledge, there. He gave me a whole list of Westerns I still have to watch, man. I’ve got to get on that!
As for Brent Walker’s own favorite Western?
“Lonesome Dove, definitely.”
An answer that’s sure to make Boots Sutherland and any fellow Yellowstone fan a proud man. Cable’s #1 show will return for Season 5 in late 2022.