yellowstone-kevin-costner-gives-timeless-reason-why-he-often-wont-go-home-after-filming

‘Yellowstone’s Kevin Costner Gives Timeless Reason Why He Often Won’t ‘Go Home’ After Filming

“This is how you do it,” a cool Kevin Costner smiles before delivering one of the best quotes of his interviewing career for CBS’ Yellowstone special.

The Hollywood icon, now inseparable from television’s most popular patriarch, sits on set for Yellowstone Season 5. Per usual, however, it’s less of a set and more picture-perfect Montana wilderness. “This is how you do it! You get it close, you make everything a little convenient,” Costner tells Lee Cowan of CBS’ Sunday Morning as he keeps their bonfire going.

He smiles wider as he tosses another log into the firepit, prompting Cowan to ask: “What’s it like at the end of the day shooting? Do you guys all come down here and hang out and have beers?”

“I do. I come down here. Sometimes I just don’t go home,” Costner replies in earnest. “I just stay right here.”

His reason? “If those mountains don’t feel the need to move, why should I?”

Jun 12, 2022: Called one of the most important western writers in decades, Taylor Sheridan created the hit TV series “Yellowstone” and its prequel, “1883” (along with the prequel’s upcoming sequel, “1932”). Correspondent Lee Cowan talks with Sheridan (who is as cowboy as they come), and with “Yellowstone” star Kevin Costner, about a return of the drama of the west.

Sunday Morning

‘Yellowstone’s Kevin Costner: ‘It’s hard to make a Western you can relate to’

As unrelatable as the Duttons’ lives can seem, what with all the murder, intrigue, and swaths of land larger than Rhode Island, Costner’s fire-stoking brings the heart of it all right back out. At the core of it all, Yellowstone is the story of a father and his family. And they’re dysfunctional on a level most of us can relate to. This is the show’s secret weapon. It really is as simple as… Family.

“Westerns, specifically, they can look really dumb, they can look obvious,” Costner offers. “They’re hard to make, and that’s the problem. It’s like, it’s hard to make a Western you can relate to.”

But the creative force behind Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan, grew up on a Texas ranch, and has remained a cowboy since. He knows how to balance the bravado of the Western genre with the intricacies of a family drama because he’s lived it. Well, sans all the murder. Hopefully.

“We’re a little violent,” Costner echoes of the Duttons. “We’re, like, a little bit ‘Murder, Inc.,’ our family – a little bit!”

Violence can be egregious in any genre. But for a Western, it’s hard to ignore. The legacy of the American West is one steeped in tremendous violence. Violence of the worst kind. And for those who know it well, it will always overshadow the postcard fantasy of The West.

“The ranchers that came here, they didn’t own this land, and they basically banded together and pushed out the Native population,” Costner cites. “It’s still beautiful. But it’s very easy to forget the drama… The things that we’ll never recover from.”

Yellowstone returns for Season 5 come November 13, exclusively on Paramount Network.