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Happy Birthday Josh Holloway: Celebrating the Roarke Actor’s Most Memorable ‘Yellowstone’ Moments

“Yellowstone” villain Josh Holloway turns 52 today. And with Season 3 over and Season 4 due out in November, Holloway’s character has become a key figure on Taylor Sheridan’s hit Paramount Network series.

His character, Roarke Morris, has progressed from cheerful annoyance to dangerous foe over the course of Season 3. The hedge fund manager wants to take a parcel of John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) land – by force if necessary – to build an airport. He’s also sent his henchmen to mess with Dutton’s ranch hands, trying to goad Dutton into doing something he can’t take back.

“This was my favorite show on TV before I booked this,” Holloway explained in a behind-the-scenes featurette from the Paramount Network. “So I was super excited.”

Josh Holloway Shines As Roarke

On “Yellowstone,” Holloway plays Roarke as a chipper businessman with a potentially lethal edge. He has a temper, though, and he loses it once the Duttons start pecking away at his hedge fund.

“Roarke is a hedge fund baller, if you will,” Holloway explained.

His infectious energy bemuses Kelly Reilly’s Beth Dutton, who comes across Roarke fly fishing on their land one day. She spurns his dinner invitation, but then discovers that Roarke is not just some random yahoo.

“This woman yelling at him from the bridge, and then climbing the fence – he thinks, ‘Wow, cutie!’” Holloway said of Roarke’s initial meeting with Beth.

“We’re swimming with the sharks now,” he added of Roarke’s dealings with the Duttons.

Watch Paramount’s featurette on Roarke here:

Holloway Just Wanted to Play a Cowboy

Josh Holloway, who had ridden horses with Sheridan before the latter’s career took off, was majorly excited when he found out he was going to be cast as a “Yellowstone” villain. Finally, the rural Georgia-raised Holloway thought, I get to play a cowboy.

“When I got the call, I was so excited that I was finally going to get to be a cowboy, because in 18 years of acting, no one has cast me as the cowboy, for God’s sake,” he told USA Today last year. “I was like, finally. Thank you, Taylor. And nope. He cast me as a Wall Street guy. I was like, ‘Taylor? Really?’ He thought that was the funniest thing.”

Holloway knew when he took on Roarke that enemies of the Duttons don’t tend to fare well on “Yellowstone.” But he dug into the role gleefully anyway, steeling himself “to be dragged through the sagebrush.”

“The man himself, Costner, leaned in to me and said, ‘You think you’re winning? I’m about to teach you the rules, boy,’” Holloway said. “So yeah, I’m going to get hurt.”