Who’d have thought the lives of cattle ranchers could make for such gripping television?
Since it started in 2018, Yellowstone has become a ratings smash, scooping up 16 million viewers for season 5a and becoming the most-watched programme of 2022. Led by the enigmatic patriarch John (Kevin Costner), the show follows the lives of the Duttons as they fight to keep control of their remote Montana ranch.
There’s been death, murder, betrayal and romance, and there’s more on the way. With season 5b set to be released soon, here’s the lowdown on who’s returning, and who they play.
Beth Dutton, played by Kelly Reilly
John and Evelyn Dutton's only daughter Beth is intelligent, cold and very calculating. A former high flying finance executive, she became the executor of the ranch after helping John through his cancer treatment.
The only issue: Jamie is not about to let that go without a fight, and indeed the trailer promises tension and violence in spades. "The only thing left to do is to kill as much as you can before they kill you,” she says.
Kelly Reilly is an English actor. Born in London in 1977, she started her career when she wrote to the producers of TV drama Prime Suspect (which starred Helen Mirren) to ask for a job. Six months later she got a role in Prime Suspect 4: Inner Circles, which aired in 1995.
Since then, she’s appeared in 2005 film Pride & Prejudice, appeared as Mary Morstan (the love interest of John Watson) in 2009’s Sherlock Holmes and in the 2012 thriller Flight with Denzel Washington. She was also nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in After Miss Julie at the Donmar Warehouse in 2003.
Rip Wheeler, played by Cole Hauser
Rip is Beth’s husband, who is also the ranch’s foreman and sometime bruiser. He has vowed to defend the ranch with his life – and indeed is shown in the trailer seemingly pushing a man to his death. “Rip does a lot of the killing,” Hauser told Parade before the start of the season, “I’ll tell you that."
Hauser comes from a long line of acting royalty: his grandfather was Oscar-winning screenwriter Dwight Hauser, while his great-grandfather Harry Warner was a founding partner of Warner Bros.
Hauser himself left school at 16 to break into acting. He’s appeared in Good Will Hunting, Dazed and Confused, Olympus Has Fallen and Transcendence.
Kayce Dutton, played by Luke Grimes
Kayce is John and Evelyn’s son. Like all the Duttons, he has a complex relationship with his father and left the ranch after he felt John drove him out. He owns one of the biggest cattle ranches in the US, which was given to him by John after he became Governor of Montana.
“It’s one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done, playing Kayce in the show,” Grimes told Holler ahead of the show’s end. “But it’s been a challenge every single year. So this season, it felt like it was just another challenge – but we were able to do it. It’s a miracle that the show was able to stay the course through all of that. [Kevin Costner] leaving was just another hump to get over. I think Taylor wrote it beautifully, and we executed it. I think the fans will be very, very happy with the ending.”
Grimes, who plays Kayce, is an American actor and musician. The son of a Pentecostal pastor, he’s appeared in 2014 Bradley Cooper film American Sniper, in Taken 2 and played Christian Grey’s brother Elliot in the film adaptations of 50 Shades of Grey. He also played vampire James Kent in True Blood in the show’s sixth season, but left because reportedly he was uncomfortable with his character’s sexuality.
Jamie Dutton, played by Wes Bentley
Jamie is Kayce and Beth’s brother, who harbours a deep grudge against Beth. As an adopted son, he’s had a rocky relationship with his family for a long time, and the series 5a finale showed the siblings squaring up to each other and possibly plotting each others’ deaths. The trailer shows him exiting his car with a gun, and we know he’s killed before. Is Jamie out to kill Beth?
Bentley is an American actor, who’s best known for playing Ricky Fitts in American Beauty (which earned him a BAFTA nomination) and Seneca Crane in 2012 film The Hunger Games. He appeared as Doyle in Interstellar and Erik in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, as well as in a documentary about his own life. Titled My Big Break, it examined his rise to fame after American Beauty and his struggles with substance abuse afterwards.
Monica Dutton, played by Kelsey Asbille
Monica is Kayce’s wife. A Native American and resident of Broken Rock Indian Reservation, she finds herself torn between her marriage, the ranch and her desire to champion the cause of her people.
Asbille has appeared in the Disney XD sitcom Pair of Kings, played Gigi Silveri on the drama One Tree Hill and played Tracy Stewart in MTV’s Teen Wolf. Her father, James Chow, is of Taiwanese American descent, and she claims Cherokee descent, though this has been disputed by the nation’s Tribal Enrollment Office.
Thomas Rainwater, played by Gil Birmingham
Thomas is the leader of the Broken Rock tribes, and owns the Grey Wolf Peak Casino. He also harbours a deep desire to take back the Yellowstone ranch, feeling a desire to claim back what his ancestors lost.
Birmingham is an American actor of Comanche descent. Though he cites music as his “first love”, he decided to become an actor after a spell as a petrochemical engineer. He’s appeared in the Twilight films as Native American chief Billy Black, but has also appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, House of Cards and 2022 miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven, where he played Detective Bill Taba.
Mo, played by Moses Brings Plenty
Mo is Thomas Rainwater’s driver and right-hand man, as well as a member of the Tribal police.
Brings Plenty was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and is a descendant of Brings Plenty, a warrior who fought in the Battle of Little Big Horn. He’s a television, film and stage actor and a traditional drummer and singer. His nephew, Cole Brings Plenty, appeared in two episodes of Yellowstone’s prequel series 1923 before his tragic death in April 2024.
Lloyd Pierce, played by Forrie J. Smith
Lloyd is the oldest ranch hand on the Yellowstone ranch, and a fierce rodeo competitor. Smith, who plays him, actually has a background in rodeo: he grew up on his grandparents’ ranch and was competing in rodeos from the age of 8. He once rode 17 horses and 11 bulls in a day, and spent much of his adult life on the rodeo circuit.
In the 1980s, that background influenced his decision to become a stuntman and he’s gone onto appear in many Western films and shows, including Rambo III, Desperado and Stagecoach.
Governor Lynelle Perry, played by Wendy Moniz
Lynelle is the Governor of Montana and a former Congresswoman. She’s a love interest of John Dutton, and in season five, she was elected as Montana’s next US senator.
Perry got her start in 1995 soap opera Guiding Light, where she played Dinah Marler, but she’s since gone onto play Rachel McCabe in Nash Bridges, Elaine McAllister in the ABC drama Betrayal and Laura Moretti in House of Cards.
Will Kevin Costner be appearing?
Despite playing the central role of John Dutton III, Kevin Costner is not set to be returning after the events of the season 5a finale.
According to Costner, he left because he and the studios behind the series failed to reach an agreement about his continued role in the show.
“I couldn’t help them any more,” People reported him saying. “We tried to negotiate, they offered me less money than previous seasons, there were issues with the creative.”
Despite the rumours, it seems as though season 5b will indeed be Costner-free.
“It truncates the closure of his character,” co-creator Tyler Sheridan told the Hollywood Reporter at the time. “It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it.”
Yellowstone will stream on Paramount+ from November 10
