No Yellowstone storyline has been more dramatic or enduring than star Kevin Costner walking away from his rumored $3 million an episode gig as Josh Dutton — the frickin’ lead! I’ll try to pare it down to the basics: the fifth season of Yellowstone was supposed to be the final of the series, and it was split into two parts. The last episode of the first part of Season 5 aired in January 2023. Then the Hollywood strikes happened, and Kevin hit the horizon to film his passion project. Last Sunday, the first episode of the second part of Season 5 aired, and right off the bat they dealt with the exit of Kevin’s character. A day later, Kevin appeared on The Michael Smerconish Program on SiriusXM, and he was more than a bit shady with the way Taylor Sheridan & Co. wrote off Josh Dutton. Warning: Spoilers ahead!
“Sometimes I’m like just a passenger in my life, you know, there’s a lot going on,” he told host Michael Smerconish. “So no, I found out about it this morning actually.”
He explained that he was not aware that the shocking death was in store for his character, though he suggested “a couple” of “possible endings” for John over the years.
“No, I didn’t see it. I heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it,” Costner said.
But he did defend the team behind Yellowstone despite the fan backlash to his character’s passing.
“Listen, they’re smart people. Whatever they’re doing, they’ll figure it out,” he said.
As Smerconish pressed Costner over whether or not he was “displeased” with John’s fate, Costner simply said, “Maybe it’s a red herring. Who knows? They’re very good. And they’ll figure that out.”
He later denied that he quit Yellowstone at all. He explained that he tried to stay on the show despite it undergoing several changes after Season 5, Part 1. But he said he eventually had to back out because he had his own “obligations” to the crew of “300 people” working on his passion project, Horizon: An American Saga.
“I didn’t really have to leave anything behind,” he said. “There was room, but it was difficult for them to keep their schedule. It seemed to be, it was just too difficult for them to do it.”
“I didn’t leave. I didn’t quit the show,” he outrightly clarified at one point of the interview. He said he “accommodated” them on the unspecified changes they wanted to make to the contracts, but, “finally when they wanted to change it a third time, because I had my obligations to do, I had 300 people waiting for me, I couldn’t help them anymore. I just simply couldn’t help them. But I didn’t quit the show.”
Full disclosure: I have never seen an episode of Yellowstone. I do, however, follow the dramatic plot points that have been playing out off screen by the show’s main characters. Like Taylor Sheridan suing Cole Hauser over similar coffee brand logos, or Forrie J. Smith (what a name!) getting himself kicked off a flight for refusing to sit next to a passenger wearing a mask. So all that plus Kevin Costner’s tense, drawn out exit, and oh my gosh these cowboys are such drama queens! On his character’s death: “They’ll figure it out.” Dude, they killed off your character. What is there to figure out? And I can’t even get into that whole “I’m just a passenger in my own life” malarkey. But I think my favorite moment is Kevin insisting that he did not quit the show, you guys! He simply decided to stop physically showing up and receive a paycheck for the series he was starring in — see the difference?! Look, Kevin may be entirely right that they kept switching contracts and schedules so he decided to honor a prior commitment. But the actions he took are still the definition of quitting.
And of course, lest we forget, the passion project he left Yellowstone for was Horizon: An American Saga, eleventy hours of Civil War-era westward expansion. Boy, did Kevin show them. He had 300 people waiting on him to direct it; if only there had been 300 people who wanted to see it in theaters.
Photos credit: Sabina Spöttel/Future Image/Cover Images, IMAGO/Sabina Spöttel/Avalon, IMAGO/Faye Sadou/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram