← The Official Yellowstone Podcast
The Official Yellowstone Podcast
Preserving History and Protecting the Future with Gil Birmingham
00:50:15
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- [00:12]
Jefferson White
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the official Yellowstone podcast. It's Jefferson White here. I am joined as always by my incomparable co host, Jen Landon.
- [00:22]
Jen Landon
Hey. Hey.
- [00:23]
Jefferson White
We are so, so glad to have you with us today. We are also very, very lucky to have with us Chairman Rainwater himself, Gil Birmingham. So grab a snack, buckle your seatbelt, depending on where you are. We'll be right back. So, Jen, I would be remiss if I didn't mention you are once again in a different state than the last time we recorded. What state are you in now? What brought you there? Where are you in your sort of incredible nomadic tour across the American West?
- [01:04]
Jen Landon
I like that you framed it as my nomadic tour across the American West. I have made my way to the last west before we hit the sea. I am in California.
- [01:16]
Jefferson White
I am as far west as it gets.
- [01:18]
Jen Landon
As far west as it gets. I'm still not home. I. I'm in Palm Springs visiting my Grandma, who is 83 and just a wonderful, wonderful, fun lady. And I was in Vegas just before this. I got to see 1923. Which are we. I don't know if we're allowed to talk about it at all. I won't say anything about it, but what I will say is that it is phenomenal. I had one of the experiences in the theater where I got emotional just because something was so good and I loved it. It shot beautifully. I saw Helen Mirren and Harrison ford from about 15ft away, and then I sort of just blacked out. Not from alcohol, to be clear. And that's where I'm at. What about you, Jeff?
- [02:14]
Jefferson White
I am so excited to see it. So many of my favorite actors are in that cast. So many of the brilliant minds that make Yellowstone look the way it does are behind that. Ben Richardson, who. Who was the DP for the first season of Yellowstone. It's so many of the ingredients that have made Yellowstone and 1883 so spectacular just being brought to bear on, I think, one of the most interesting periods in American history.
- [02:45]
Jen Landon
I felt the same way in terms of the period. The period being something that was so rich in and of itself. And Ben really shot the hell out of it. A big part of my emotional reaction was the way he shot it. There are images I usually think of, I usually consider something art. If a week later, the images are still floating through my mind and images from that are floating through, like paintings, standalone pieces. He's incredible.
- [03:18]
Jefferson White
I feel the same way about some of his work on season one of Yellowstone. I feel the same way about a Lot of his work in 1883. I am so excited to see that. And it's such a cool thing, you know, like, every week on Yellowstone, there's these. There's this idea that's been a part of the show since the beginning of this history, this culture that we're fighting to preserve. In this week's episode of Yellowstone, we spend some time in this graveyard, this history, these ghosts that haunt this family, and that John Dutton's life feels, to a certain extent, like an homage to what came before. So it's such an amazing thing to jump back in time and be immersed in that history and see what it is they're fighting for. So I really cannot wait for that show. Okay. Yeah. Digging it. So we're clearly excited to jump into it and talk about this episode of Yellowstone. Speaking of the Dutton Ranch, recurring theme on the show, Yellowstone. Believe it or not, this episode opens up deep, deep into the Dutton Ranch, up deep in the mountains. And it starts with jd, Beth, and Rip on a gather. So at the end of the last episode, we witnessed everybody riding out, riding out into the wilderness, into the furthest reaches of the Dutton Ranch to gather up all of the cows, all these pairs, they call them, right? So moms and calves, and bring them back to the ranch in order to brand them. Right.
- [04:46]
Jen Landon
What we see throughout this entire sequence is that everybody, Everybody benefits from this adventure. Everybody needs it. I think there's a line that Casey says where he's talking about Tate to John, and he says, he needed this. And John says, we all do, son. And that sort of need and enthusiasm continues through with the Clara character, just like writing up. And since we can cuss on this podcast, she's like, this is fucking awesome. And that smile never ends. And John says something to be effective, like, if you could only bottle it up and sell it.
- [05:23]
Jefferson White
Yeah. There's that amazing line where John says to Casey, you could sell it, son. You could bottle it up and sell it in case he says, there's no one to sell it to, dad. The only people who know what it's worth are already doing it. Which I think is so funny, which.
- [05:37]
Jen Landon
Is funny and also so true. And I feel like you have had this experience as an actor. I've had this experience as an actor, which is horses were not a part of my life. Ranching was not a part of my life. And I have become one of those people who sometimes will say, the difference between a good day and a great day is riding a horse. And so it's something that you don't really know until you experience it. And we've been lucky enough to be forced into a situation and paid handsomely to experience it.
- [06:12]
Jefferson White
Yeah, we've had the incredible privilege of getting put on the best horses in the world and being taught by the best trainers in the world, such that we can. We can sort of brush up against the grandeur of this experience.
- [06:25]
Jen Landon
Absolutely.
- [06:25]
Jefferson White
So what was this like? So you guys are there. You're doing this massive gather. In practical terms, that basically means forming a huge drag net of cowboys and combing through miles and miles and miles of trees and ravines and rivers and lakes to gather all these cows. Will you just talk about the experience of riding out and doing that gathering?
- [06:47]
Jen Landon
Yeah. We shot this whole sequence from sort of the moving down Mount Chisholm and pushing the cattle into the Dutton ranch. I feel like over a course of three months and many different shoot days. And trying to tie it all together in my brain as I looked over the episode was fascinating. My favorite days are cow days. You oftentimes never see your crew. You're so far away and so immersed in the pushing of the cattle, you forget cameras are there. Except that when you see one really close, oftentimes you'll sort of use your horse to shield said camera from cattle that may or may not be moving too quickly towards it and the innocent crew standing behind it. The fact that we got to shoot this over so many days meant that I got to hang with the wonderful Buck Taylor. And because we got shut down due to air quality for many days, trying to grab this sequence because the wildfires were so bad in the valley meant that I got even extra time with Buck Taylor. And we know based on what happens in this episode, extra time with Buck Taylor is precious time because it is the last time. So Taylor, besides bringing in these mamas and these babies, of course, for this branding, this sort of newness of life, we also come to the end of life with the passing of Emmett Walsh, which I know is more plot oriented than process oriented, but it's where we landed.
- [08:39]
Jefferson White
Yeah, that duality, as always, Taylor really hitting us with that duality, as you said, the joy. The sort of joy and kind of spark and fire of, like, birth youth, you know, there's so much sort of rebirth happening in this sequence. It feels like a bit of a rebirth for Clara. She participates in this. It's a bit of a rebirth for Casey, who's been grieving the loss of his son. It feels like there's so much rebirth happening. And then on the Other side of that, always with the duality, the dialectics, the passing of Emmett Walsh, who is a character that's been in Yellowstone from the very beginning. He's sort of been peppered throughout the series. He's been a part of the backbone of the series. A huge support structure for John. It feels like a bit of a North Star for John as he's made political decisions. He's turned to Emmett Walsh to sort of say, hey, is this right? Are we doing the right thing? Am I doing the right thing by my constituents, by the ranchers around me? And so for him to lose that North Star is a really. It's a development.
- [09:50]
Jen Landon
It's a huge moment. And I love that he has that interaction with John before they fall asleep where they talk about how it's a perfect day. And I found that so moving, because if we could only be so lucky to have that perfect day on our way out. And there's also this theme that Taylor hits on in the sort of following sequence when he's coming back with Laney Wilson's character, Abby, who's waiting for Ryan. I always get the names confused because I feel like we all have our names overlap somehow in the show. And some people have their real names, but Abby is waiting there. And there's this theme, obviously, of a cowboy. You'll never really have them. And I was so moved by the fact that Emmet passed away, away from his wife. And that as sad as that might be on one level, like, how poetic and beautiful that even in death, they sort of belong to the land. The cowboy belongs to the land and belongs to the herd. And when John delivers that news of his passing, though she collapses in grief. There isn't a sense that anything bad or wrong has happened. That it's. That it is so beautiful. And even her helping out later in the episode, she doesn't want Emmett's passing to overshadow anything about the beauty of this branding.
- [11:16]
Jefferson White
Yeah, this cycle of life, you know, the cycle continues and this sort of tradition continues. Yeah. Which has been a huge motif this season. Right. Like, it's also. These Rip and Beth stuff in this episode, I think is incredible because it's these quiet moments between the two of them. So much of this season feels like it's been dominated by Beth getting ripped away from home, getting sort of put on the camp. Well, not on the campaign trail, but into this new sort of arena. She's kind of fighting further and further away from home every episode. She's getting in a private jet or a helicopter. And flying off somewhere else. So it also feels so precious that Beth goes along against perhaps her usual instincts. She decides to go along on this gather. And it means that the two of them have this time together in the mountains.
- [12:05]
Jen Landon
Yeah. And we get to see Beth the cowboy. I could say cowgirl, but I'll just say cowboy. And in some ways, she was more cowboy to me than anyone when she was like, give me whiskey and cigarettes and the person I love and I'm good, and I loved. Like you said, she gets pulled further away from home. I feel like she's always being forced out into these situations where, you know, she's having to engage with big forces. But in many ways, Beth, at her core, just wants that small, tiny, you know, patch of peace to call her own with someone she loves. And that the juxt. That dichotomy is what makes the audience and me. It's part of what makes me love her so much.
- [12:57]
Jefferson White
Yeah. Her philosophy. We're getting so. We get so many nice little snippets of her philosophy this season, which, God bless her, as it is with all of us, is sometimes a little contradictory, you know, is often sort of whatever wins are the argument. It feels like sometimes her philosophy is just whatever's going to win or the argument. But she has a great line in this episode that I think you and I both flagged, which is, she says, you know, they're talking about how beautiful. You know, Rip and JD Are talking about how beautiful it is to be out there in the mountains. And Beth says, this isn't beautiful. It's too big to be beautiful. It's too much space to comprehend. Give me a little meadow and a creek. No one knows about that. I understand. I have it to myself. You can see this from a fucking airplane. I don't share the things I find beautiful, which is such an interesting. It's an interesting Beth philosophy. And it also. I can't help but wonder if that's a bit of a Taylor philosophy, too.
- [13:49]
Jen Landon
I was just gonna say, like, it's the most. It's such a sneak. It's such a reveal of Taylor, conscious or not. I'm so glad you just said that.
- [13:58]
Jefferson White
Yeah, it's so funny. Cause, you know, I think Taylor could talk about this much more eloquently than we ever could. But I think there's a little bit of Taylor in a lot of these characters, and I think there's a little bit of Taylor in Beth. And sometimes she says something, and I'm like. I feel like that's just Taylor talking. Because as he's built this empire that we all are lucky to be a part of, as he kind of builds this massive, huge thing, he also. What he loves is horses. He loves these simple moments. He loves the little things. Some of the happiest times I've seen him is not on set. It's when he's working at his ranch, when he's just sort of participating in real life on a cattle ranch.
- [14:36]
Jen Landon
He feels so much to me like that. And the guy loves to cook. He's an amazing cook. The first night I ever stayed over on the ranch at like 7am, I had gotten in late the night before. He's like, get up. I'm like, huh? He's like, we got to go move cattle. Let's go. So we went and pushed cattle. I feel like we've sat through a few good comedies together. He's just a really. He's certainly not a simple person, but the things that soften his heart are simple.
- [15:08]
Jefferson White
Yeah, it's a little bit like if Jeff Bezos was in the Amazon warehouse, like, taping up boxes, you know what I mean? It's a little bit of like Elon Musk is down at the Tesla factory, like, screwing wheels into a car. You know, Taylor, like, he's really out there living this life. Everything he's ever asked us to do, he fucking loves doing. And if he could choose, I know he would be, you know.
- [15:30]
Jen Landon
Yes.
- [15:30]
Jefferson White
Wrestling a calf on the ground, trying to hold it down, instead of writing.
- [15:35]
Jen Landon
There were days when he would be directing and producing and also writing other shows in his head, and he'd grab the hose to water down the arena because he just loves those things to the point where I'm like, I think union wise, someone else has to do that. Yeah.
- [15:50]
Jefferson White
Hey, Mr. Bezos, do you mind? I'll tape that box up. You're going to get a paper cut. Listen, another thing I can't help but notice is you said that while you guys were shooting this gathering sequence and the branding sequence, you guys were shut down by forest fire, which has also been a sort of image that's recurred in the show this season and the narrative of the show. Will you talk about that a little bit?
- [16:08]
Jen Landon
Yeah. The fires showed up in. We ended up shooting this whole sequence in bits again, spread out over a course of a few months. There were a few pieces that just became impossible for us to grab because the fire season in Montana starts usually in the one hot month that Montana has. The air quality was, I believe, the worst in the country, it started in northern Idaho and up through there. And a part of why we can't shoot is for our health, but also for the well being of the animals more than anything. I do believe the horses shut us down before the people do. But adjacent to smoke, I think, I think it's a bit of a sidestep. But the actual flanking and branding of these cattle, all of the actors that you saw flank. All the actors you see flank in the episode are flanking. In real life, the branding was happening. My snot was gray brown for many, many days.
- [17:11]
Jefferson White
And so just for little cowboy glossary moment, once again, the flanking is grabbing a calf and throwing. You know, it gets dragged. A cowboy lassos a calf's back legs, drags it to sort of to kind of make it spread eagle. Two cowboys grab them and flip them on their back and pin their legs down so a third cowboy can brand them. And I think you're referring to the fact that when you brand a cow, a cow that's functionally made of leather and fur, there's a lot of smoke.
- [17:41]
Jen Landon
There's a lot of smoke. That was the jump. Thank you, Josh.
- [17:44]
Jefferson White
That just washes right over your face. So by the end of a day of branding. Yeah. You're really. It's like you've been working at a coal mine all day, but it's not. It's not coal dust.
- [17:53]
Jen Landon
No.
- [17:54]
Jefferson White
You know, to say the least, it's.
- [17:55]
Jen Landon
A different kind of dust. A different kind of dust. Yeah. Anyway, shooting that entire sequence was amazing. That is one that I'm sorry that you missed because it was so beautiful. And the locations that we got to go to were majestic. And sometimes at the end of those days, after you've got your last shot, but the sun is still out and the horses need to get back to where they go instead of just jumping off and handing them to a wrangler and getting back in your van and taking the 25 minute van ride back or 30 minute van ride back to civilization. Sometimes some of us would just ride as the sun was going down after the cameras were done, and we'd just be sitting and talking and it was like we didn't want to let go. We didn't want to let go of the world we had just been in.
- [18:50]
Jefferson White
Oh, that's beautiful. It's what you said. It's the difference between a good day and a great day.
- [18:54]
Jen Landon
Totally.
- [18:55]
Jefferson White
Let's take a quick break and then we're going to dig into the rest of this episode because there's a lot of Other stuff going on.
- [19:10]
Jen Landon
Okay, so jumping back in here, I want to talk a little bit about what happens with POTUS coming to the res and that whole sequence. There were a few things that stuck out to me in particular, one of them being the dogs. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that and hear your thoughts, Jeff, and bounce that back and forth.
- [19:33]
Jefferson White
Yeah. What an incredibly chilling image about two completely different relationships to nature. Right. To nature and community, you know? So Mo, we love a good Mo episode. This is a great Mo episode. Mo is sort of discovers these black SUVs, these helicopters, this sort of operation going down, is trying to figure out, trying to get to the bottom of whatever's going on here and ends up witnessing these Secret Service agents killing these dogs, which is such a strange, you know. You know, a stray dog, a quote unquote stray dog that could be perceived as a threat or just sort of, you know, something that could be discarded so thoughtlessly by one person, is somebody else's pet, is somebody. Is like a beloved part of somebody else's community. What. What an enduring image.
- [20:28]
Jen Landon
I felt like it was such a brilliant device for that Taylor uses when he does that, because one of the things that's irredeemable is the killing of a petition. That's something that in movies. I can watch humans die in movies. I'm like, yeah, whatever. But you kill a dog, it's like that. In Independence Day, the entire globe died. But then we thought the golden retriever died in the tunnel. And we were like, fuck this, I'm out. So these dogs, though, the things. I mean, for me, my pets are. I don't have children. They are the things that are sort of nearest and dearest to us.
- [21:07]
Jefferson White
Yeah, it's fascinating. It's this outsider's perspective on what safety means here.
- [21:13]
Jen Landon
Right.
- [21:13]
Jefferson White
It's this outside force coming in and telling Mo, Daring to tell Mo what safety means or what security means on the reservation. And it's like, oh, nice of you to show up. You know, when was the last time you checked in on our safety and security?
- [21:29]
Jen Landon
Absolutely.
- [21:30]
Jefferson White
Here we are, living our lives every day, confronting this difficult circumstance, and you're going to come in and tell us what represents safety and security. The sort of arrogance and tone deafness of that, I think, is a really clear image. And then, you know, it's setting up as. As there's this kind of interesting political struggle going on in John Dutton's world. This interesting political struggle fomenting between John Dutton and Jamie and his political opponents. There's also this interesting political struggle being set up on the Res. So there's this, for the first time, this sort of threat from within. For five seasons, we've seen Rainwater navigate threats from without. You know, outside forces coming to strip away what belongs to his people. Now we're seeing this interesting threat from within. So we're seeing Angela Blue Thunder.
- [22:21]
Jen Landon
Yeah.
- [22:23]
Jefferson White
Setting up, kind of propping up a political opponent for Rainwater. A young politician on the Res named Martin kills Mini. And I think that's a really interesting expression of the fact that, hey, this is. This community is not a monolith. There is not only one idea of how this place should operate, just like any other government, just like any other place on Earth. There are many conflicting ideas about how the Res should operate and how it should be run and what the priorities should be. And it's fascinating to see that play out and to see Rainwater confronted with that for the first time. You know, he's now got an opponent from inside the house, you know.
- [23:04]
Jen Landon
Yeah. I'm anxious and deeply interested in how this dynamic is going to play out.
- [23:10]
Jefferson White
Yeah, I'm really excited to see that.
- [23:12]
Jen Landon
Me too. Speaking of interesting dynamics that we saw play out in the shower.
- [23:20]
Jefferson White
Whoa.
- [23:21]
Jen Landon
Let's jump to our, like, Jamie, Sarah, that relationship.
- [23:26]
Jefferson White
Jamie, Sarah just living their own weird little rom com here, right?
- [23:31]
Jen Landon
There's this amazing thing where she's like. But she's, you know, saying, I'm. I have no ulterior motives. Like, I am into you, and being into you made me want to, like, fight for you. And what I love is that he basically is like, no, our ulterior motives are not separate from our foreplay. They are integral and crucial. He, like, goes in and is like, make me. Make me powerful. And then it's just game on. As messed up as it might be, I really feel like it's sort of a relationship model for acceptance.
- [24:14]
Jefferson White
Yeah. It's all on the table. At least. At least they're not deceiving each other. There's a big, like, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth thing going on there. There's this kind of will to power, and these two people sort of enabling each other and pushing each other deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. It's also. It's such a demonstration of, like, you know, nobody has really approached Jamie with the carrot for, like, five seasons. Everybody's just kind of chased Jamie around with the stick. So I think it makes a lot of sense that he's susceptible to a charm offensive, and now he's really in over his head. But It's. Maybe he wants to be in over his head. It does seem like. It doesn't seem like he doesn't know what he's getting into. It seems like he knows what he's getting into and he's forgive. Forgive me. Going deeper and deeper into it.
- [25:00]
Jen Landon
Yes, I feel like he is. And there's only so long. If you are treated like the bad one for so long, at some point you must become the thing. And there's actually like a line at the end of that scene which was stage direction and not dialogue. But I sort of loved it, which Taylor says his meaning Jamie's, his passion gives way to something more frantic. And I was. I, like, my mind went, dot, dot, Daddy issues, question mark like what? Like, what is this? More frantic.
- [25:37]
Jefferson White
That is so funny. There's a lot of. It's also like. It's sweet. There's all these sort of blossoming, beautiful romances. There's all these kind of spring romances happening on the show this year. There's Abby and Ryan. There's an amazing new romance introduced this episode. A little love interest for Carter, which is very exciting. So there's all these kind of spring romances. And then it's interesting to see this kind of mature, Machiavellian kind of, you know, fall romance happening between Jamie and Sarah. Kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum. There's these kind of sweet, almost naive kind of young love sequences.
- [26:23]
Jen Landon
Nobody makes a pass first base in.
- [26:26]
Jefferson White
That love, whereas Jamie and Sarah. You get the sense that they are running laps, you know, you get the sense that they're just. They're just running laps around the bases. It really is wild. Every week when I. When I think it can't get any better, they do it again. They blow the roof off again. I really. I cannot wait for next week's episode. We're going to take a quick breather. When we come back, we're going to chat with a man that I am proud to call my friend. He plays Chairman Thomas Rainwater, the incomparable Gil Birmingham. So stand by. We feel so lucky to be joined today by an actor that has been teaching us a lot for five years now. We feel lucky enough to call him our friend. Thank you so much for being here, Gail.
- [27:32]
Gil Birmingham
It's a real pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- [27:35]
Jen Landon
Gil knows this. Jeff. I don't know if you know this, but my family doesn't really talk to me about anybody on the show. But I get weekly calls from my mother and my younger brother about seeing Gil in one of the 800 projects he's working on and how he's the best actor in the world and they're obsessed with him and they want to sit down and have dinner with him and be his friend.
- [28:01]
Gil Birmingham
Let's make that happen. I'd love to sit and dine with your family.
- [28:06]
Jen Landon
Gil, was your first interaction with Taylor around Hell or High Water? Was that your first crossing with him?
- [28:14]
Gil Birmingham
It was, yeah.
- [28:16]
Jen Landon
And I feel like you guys have not just a work partnership, but a friendship that sort of goes. That transcends the workplace as well. Did you guys have that friendship from the get go?
- [28:30]
Gil Birmingham
Well, I think it develops. You know, it's funny because my biggest advocate for Hell or High water was David McKenzie, the director, because we had a number of talented actors that were really campaigning for that role. And Taylor wasn't familiar with me really, to speak of. And he was really simply the writer. He didn't direct either. But David McKenzie really, really pitched for me. And then once Taylor saw the work and I think what was his words? You know, I didn't know your work before, but from now on, you'll never have to audition for me. And then when river came after that, and of course then it was just being integrated into the family with Nicole and Gus and being invited out to the ranch, spending Christmas with them from time to time. And yeah, it's been both a professional and a personal collaboration, you know, just a lot of love, ma'am.
- [29:35]
Jen Landon
Just because the people listening won't know, won't know this. One of the things that, Gil, that I love about working with you, and I feel like I've had scenes with you and I haven't, is because Gil loves coming to set on days that he's not working and just hanging out. And oftentimes you have been a presence on set. That makes me feel like everything in the day is going to go much better. And I love that I get to hang out with you because otherwise I'd probably. I would have seen you at a Bellator fight and maybe run into you in a restaurant in Derby. But because you're such a team player, I feel like I've had all these interactions with you.
- [30:24]
Gil Birmingham
I love the way Jeff Bridges put it. One day he said, we do the work, but the best part of any job is the hang. And on Howler High Water, we would look at the dailies at the end of the week and then we'd party a little bit, play some music and just to get to know each other personally. But, you know, that energy carries on to the set and the dynamics of the characters. And I think that's what I love about coming down to the set, because I don't want to interfere, you know, with people's work, workspace and process. I know that their. Their focus is on that, but I do want to be there to kind of absorb it and support it and just. Just be part of the family, you know, and that's.
- [31:08]
Jefferson White
You're so right that I think it actually, rather than distracting from the work, in many ways, it is the work because, you know, in this show, your character, for instance, your character and most character have a lifelong relationship. And what supports that lifelong relationship is the work you do on set, but it's also the time you spend together offset. It's sort of building a familiarity and an intimacy that transcends what we see on screen, such that when we see you on screen, we feel a shared history.
- [31:44]
Gil Birmingham
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the authenticity, you know, of the dynamics of the characters that I feel most connected with. And that's what we want to, you know, kind of engage in. In the craft as a whole. But it makes it so much easier and believable. I think when you have a personal connection, if that works, if you're lucky enough to have that kind of relationship and opportunity, then it really does transfer in a real way on screen.
- [32:12]
Jen Landon
I would say it does, because I would put you on the list of the five actors most likely to make me cry while watching their performance. Do you feel like you can get that authenticity into any part that is written that you read, or do you feel like some parts and it's probably part of your decision making where you go, this isn't. There isn't something interesting or three dimensional here, and I'm going to set this one out.
- [32:41]
Gil Birmingham
Sometimes you just have to step into a scary place and trust, you know, I mean, it's your team. The show that I did that your family was so complimentary about, under the Banner of Heaven, there's a number of times I had some questions and some doubts about I was going to make this believable and would this be a situation that would happen between these two characters? So that's a good director, you know, that you can trust and guide you, and then your own internal mechanisms that tell you whether it feels true or not and just jumping off the board sometimes and hope that it works.
- [33:22]
Jefferson White
Yeah, it's interesting when you really kind of take that same internal process, like your personal, internal, rich internal life, and you apply it to characters that are in dramatically different circumstances. So even just in your work with Taylor, Right. In Taylor's writing, you've played three characters that I know of that, all of which come from very different socioeconomic backgrounds and have very different experiences. So your character on Wind river versus, you know, Rainwater on Yellowstone have completely different experiences, while you yourself have the same sort of internal emotional alchemy. So will you just talk about your process specifically of working on Rainwater, how you approach that? Somebody whose real life circumstances are quite different than your own?
- [34:12]
Gil Birmingham
Well, you know, I've had a lot of. A lot of interaction with the chairman of my own. My own tribe, you know, that the Comanche down there. And I basically modeled Rainwater after them, you know, and I see the, you know, the. I don't know, how would I say. I know the strength and the difficulty of trying to manage through all the elements that are involved in trying to be a leader and serve the people. I think it got quite, quite a bit more expanded on Yellowstone because he's really feeling responsible for the whole tribe in a larger sense as it relates to land. But that's really about creating that space where they have their own sovereignty, where they're not subjugated to any of the other devices as John Dutton is as well, of outside interest, trying to. To corrupt it and. But there's more of us. I don't want to say almost, you know, it's hard to relate to spiritual and native worlds, you know, because it's such a trope. But it really is the essence of what the ancestral. The ancestral heritage and legacy that we feel responsible to carry on because we're always standing on the shoulders of all those ancestors before us. And Rainwater really lives in a split world, you know, because he wasn't raised on the reservation, so he wasn't exposed to the culture nearly as in depth as, say, Moe's character. But he's found a mission and a purpose to utilize what it is that he was given, to be able to capture what the justice is and the necessity or what the things that are necessary to be able to provide for his people.
- [36:18]
Jefferson White
And as you mentioned, it's this complicated relationship, and it's something that JD Struggles with, to this relationship between the history, the present and the future, and this kind of simultaneous, you know, obligation and simultaneous responsibility and duty to preserve the history, to take care of the people that you're serving right now and also try to project into the future and try to make decisions that are going to ensure a sort of stable and secure future. It's an incredibly complicated job. It's an incredibly. I don't envy, you know, being the head that wears the crown, because it feels like he's being pulled in so many different directions by a bunch of people, most of whom are right. You know, like, almost everybody's right at the same time.
- [37:07]
Gil Birmingham
Well, he's pulled by a very dysfunctional family, so he's got that going for him. And I. And I, you know, as my sense is, Rainwater, is that it's an even bigger. A bigger world that he's trying to provide because it's not just for immediate family. It's for his people right now. But. But it's very interrelated to the ancestry of all the people that came before them, and then the philosophy and the belief that we have to maintain and sustain this for another seven generations. You know, that's the principle of the Native culture, that we steward the land and we keep it the way it is. So seven generations will have. We're borrowing the land from our future, you know, from our children. It's not owning it from the past. But that process has been going on ever since the beginning of colonization here in this country.
- [38:08]
Jen Landon
That's so beautiful. I was not aware of that. The preserving for seven generations down the line that the land belongs to them. That's a pretty fantastic way to sort of move through the world, thinking that way.
- [38:24]
Jefferson White
And, you know, one of the conflicts that arises this season over and over is that, you know, J.D. finds himself at odds sometimes with Rainwater. Sometimes Rainwater and JD's political goals line up, and sometimes they don't. And we see JD sort of like fighting a lot of battles, but with different people who have different ideas of what the land should look like in seven generations. And Rainwater has found himself in a sort of uneasy truce with JD for a couple of seasons now. But it feels like this season we're really starting to test the limits of that truce. You know, so they've been working in tandem, but now, especially as Rainwater faces these threats from within, as he faces this kind of insurgent political campaign from within the reservation with Martin Kills many and Angela Blue Thunder sort of mounting this campaign against him. Will you talk about that? Will you talk a little bit about this idea of simultaneously facing threats from without and from within?
- [39:27]
Gil Birmingham
Yeah, that's a. That's a really interesting twist. That's. That Taylor has incorporated, but it. But it also exists in the Native world. You know, on reservations, there's always power struggles within the tribes, and that's, you know, I Guess we kind of attribute that to the level of colonization and the assimilation that the settlers have really kind of instigated from the beginning. You know, if you can keep a people infighting, then they're easier to control than manipulate. And so it's a hard thing, you know, from the time that, you know, children were stolen from their parents, put in residential schools, indoctrinated, you know, and forced to be able to assimilate within the white culture. So it's so ingrained to the level that to get back to the essence of the culture, man, you have to debrief all that. And it's a lot of. In the DNA conflict of what the natural origin of the culture was of a people that have been here since millennia and then encounter another outside force that try to change them. I mean, it's gone on, obviously, globally, you know, since the Europeans have left. But our show deals with specifically the dynamics in America and the indigenous people here. But, yeah, I know. I don't know if you're familiar with Russell Means. He was talking about the. Years ago. He was a member and founder of the American Indian Movement back in the 70s, but it became a more militant group in terms of fighting the forces that were trying to subjugate us, basically a peaceful people. But that extension of control or the nature of human beings or government will eventually touch everyone. And he had a great line where. And I think Taylor even called one of his episodes that you're the Indian now. So a bit of irony there. And I think that's what John Dutton's. John Dutton's experiencing, you know, from his point of view.
- [41:44]
Jefferson White
Yeah, that is fascinating. And there's been so many times throughout the series that it's echoed. Like, there's been so many moments where John Dutton says, somebody's trying to take my land. And then Rainwater turns to him and says, hey, wait a second. What do you mean, your land? Like, since when, buddy? It's such a fat. Yeah, those echoes. And it's such a. Speaking of those echoes, as, you know, the Yellowstone universe expands as we have had the opportunity to see 1883, 1923 is coming out soon. It's an amazing thing to delve back into and come into often painful confrontation with this history.
- [42:22]
Gil Birmingham
Yeah, I think that's the beauty of Taylor's spinoffs, is that you're getting a sense of where all this originated from, you know, for generations. And of course, for. For Rainwater, you know, like I spoke of before, this is really in our DNA. This is, you know, centuries, centuries you know, so the depth of that connection and how it's evolved and developed to the place where we are in present day is a very visceral experience. And boys, it's ever changing. You know, it's. The society itself is changing. As, you know, as we're witnessing now, you know, the polarization, the politicalization and John becoming a politician, you know, and that being injected into it. But it's, it's extremely challenging. Makes for good tv, you know, but at the same time, we want to, you know, tell stories that kind of reflect back to us about what. How are we acting as human beings? You know, this. This is real, a real reflection of our society. And is this the kind of people we want to be? Isn't there a better way to do it? Specific for. For the Dutton and his ranch and the family, but I think they're kind of two coins or two sides of the same. Same coin for Rainwater and John.
- [43:50]
Jefferson White
Yeah. This responsibility to a history, to. This responsibility to a history, to a culture, they both feel that. And then. And then diving into that history and that culture in these prequels, I can't help but say, you know, like, it feels very vindicating for Rainwater, for this other side of the conversation. As JD's relationship to rainwater sort of grows and shifts and changes over time, I think it becomes clearer and clearer that from the beginning of this thing, Rainwater was right and JD is slowly coming around to that. That's sort of how I'm interpreting it.
- [44:25]
Gil Birmingham
Well, the one thing that they have in common, I think, is the respect of the way they're connecting to the land. I mean, that's where. That's their connecting element. Because the land is what is the essence of where they're identity is. Their existence is. And the land is the nurture. The land is ultimately the life force of all humanity. And how we conduct ourselves and how we sustain it is really going to determine what our lives are going to be. And I think the sense of just kind of roughshod and over development, you know, for corporations and everything is just a death sentence. So we're trying to prevent that and try to save as much of it as we can, maybe for our own individual purposes or our own different philosophies, but it's about the land and it's about the people.
- [45:22]
Jefferson White
Yeah. Gil, I can't thank you enough for joining us. I'm such a huge fan. I'm so excited to see what comes next for Rainwater, but also just for you. I feel like anybody who's looking for something good to watch? Just go look at Gil's IMDb and pick anything just put because it really is spectacular filmography.
- [45:41]
Jen Landon
I think you can just search his name in a Netflix box or a Paramount box.
- [45:46]
Gil Birmingham
Oh, thank you guys so much, man. Always a joy to see your faces and to speak with you and just ton and ton of love to you both.
- [46:05]
Jefferson White
As always. It's amazing to speak with Gil. It's amazing to learn from Gil. Before we go, we want to call out a really important podcast from our friends at CBS News. Missing justice investigates the missing and murdered indigenous persons crisis through the story of one woman who lost her life on a reservation in Montana. Christy woodentheist family rushed to her home on the Northern Cheyenne reservation when they got the shocking news that the 33 year old mother was dead. They arrived to find no police officers, no approaching sirens, and no sign of Christie. Missing justice takes you inside what really happened that night and the federal investigation that followed. Here's a first listen. Be sure to check out the full series.
- [46:48]
Cara Cordy
Christy woodenthei died two years ago on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Lamedir, Montana. When her family arrived at the scene of her death in a neighborhood just a few miles from the police station, they were shocked that officers hadn't secured the scene.
- [47:03]
Beau Erickson
Where's the cops? First of all, why is there no cops here? Because it's a crime scene, you know, like there should have been yellow tape.
- [47:09]
Cara Cordy
The tragedy of Christy's death turned into a two year ordeal for her family. And most of all, it left them in search of what they felt their sister deserved. Justice.
- [47:21]
Beau Erickson
No, I don't feel like justice was served. I feel like we have to serve justice ourselves. It affected the whole community.
- [47:29]
Cara Cordy
I'm Cara Cordy.
- [47:31]
Jefferson White
And I'm Beau Erickson and we cover the federal government for CBS News. And together we've been investigating how federal authorities respond to emergencies, investigate crimes and prosecute suspects across Native American reservations. And that's how we found out about Christy.
- [47:48]
Beau Erickson
We kind of had confidence in the police, hoping they'd arrest him. And then it was just silence, like nobody came and let us know anything.
- [47:57]
Cara Cordy
Her family and community demanded an arrest for Christy's death.
- [48:01]
Beau Erickson
That's when we got pissed off. That's when I was like raised in hell. Like, why the hell is this guy not in jail?
- [48:08]
Cara Cordy
A dramatic trial revealed shocking mistakes made by investigators.
- [48:12]
Jen Landon
They just dropped the ball so much.
- [48:15]
Gil Birmingham
Over and over and over.
- [48:17]
Cara Cordy
Through all of this, the Northern Cheyenne community was outraged, but also not surprised because tensions with law enforcement had long existed.
- [48:26]
Gil Birmingham
There's a lot of families around here that deserve a lot better than what they've got from our law enforcement system. People need to work more with the police force to get things done, but they don't trust.
- [48:38]
Cara Cordy
But the issues in this community are not unique. They consider Christie one of the stolen sisters of the missing and murdered Indigenous peoples crisis. Follow along as CBS News examines how well the federal government upholds its responsibility to keep Native Americans safe.
- [48:55]
Jen Landon
These families need justice. Stuff like this shouldn't be happening.
- [48:58]
Beau Erickson
And when it does, it's really shocking.
- [49:00]
Jen Landon
Because we've lost so many young women.
- [49:03]
Beau Erickson
And a short time Listen to Missing.
- [49:06]
Cara Cordy
Justice from CBS News wherever you get your podcasts.
- [49:16]
Jefferson White
Wow. Count me in. I'm. I'm excited and also a little afraid to hear more. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode of the only official Yellowstone Podcast. We have new episodes every Sunday following the show. Listen to the Official Yellowstone Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Official Yellowstone Podcast is a production of One on One Studios and Paramount. This episode was produced by Scott Stone. Brandon Gatches is the head of audio for One on One Studios. Steve Razis is the Executive Vice President of the Paramount Global Podcast Group. Special thanks to Meghan Markus, Jeremy Westfall, Ainsley Rosito, Andrew Sarnow, Jason Reed and Whitney Baxter from Paramount. And of course, David Glasser, David Hucken and Michelle Newman from 101 Studios.